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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT: 



IMPRIMATUR. 

© Patritius Joannes, 

Archiep. Philadelphiensis. 



THE 

Apostleship of Suffering 



BY 

FATHER JOHN LYONNARD, 

il 

OF THE SOCIETY OF JESUS. 



3 "> -, J 3 , 5 > •> . 

t'% ' ' /« Cruce salus. 



r ' In the Cross is salvation. 



i 3 i •) » :> 



REVISED 

WITH ADDITIONAL MATTER AFTER THE AUTHOR'S FINAL 
EDITION, FROM THE TRANSLATION BY 



LADY HF.RBRRT_ ^^ S*?*? CCctf. ty 

BRIGHT * 




PHILADELPHIA 

MESSENGER OF THE SACRED HEART 

114 South Third Street 

1890 






( ( 

COPYRIGHT' 
189O 



BY BeV.'R. S.>D^WEY, 



O. j. 



The author of the present treatise designed it 
as a companion book to The Apostleship of Prayer 
by Father Ramiere. He lived to see the latter work 
become the doctrinal foundation of a wellnigh uni- 
versal League of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The 
nature of the ideas which he felt himself called to 
set before the Christians of a self-indulgent age has 
naturally prevented his own work from having a like 
success. Providence also seems to point out that his 
high thoughts on the Divine Mission and Apostolic 
Uses of Suffering are to be brought home to Christ- 
ian hearts in that association which unites so many 
with the Heart of Jesus Pleading and Agonizing for 
men. In fact, his book is little more than a devel- 
opment of a part of that daily Morning Offering 
which is the essential bond of union of the Associ- 
ates of the Holy League. The many millions of 
Christians who have embraced the Apostleship of 
Prayer in all parts of the world bind themselves to 
offer daily for the "Intentions" and desires of the 
Divine Heart, through the Heart of Mary Immacu- 



VI 



late, ' ' all their prayers, works, and sufferings. ' ' 
Accordingly, before his death in 1887, Father Lyon- 
nard bequeathed his book to the General Direction 
of the Apostleship of Prayer. 

This Holy League, as is well known, has for its 
periodical organ the Messenger of the Sacred Heart, 
published in so many various languages. The Amer- 
ican Messenger now gives, in its Quarterly Sacred 
Heart Library, this final translation of The Apostle- 
ship of Suffering, revised according to the authorized 
edition of the original published by the Director 
General of the Apostleship of Prayer. For this 
purpose Lady Herbert, with the greatest kindness, 
has allowed the use of her own excellent version, 
made from the first edition as long ago as 1870 and 
now out of print. To this the new chapters, written 
by the author for his last edition, have been added, 
with other slight changes in accordance with the 
present scope of the work. It is hoped that the 
holy desires of Father Lyonnard may thus be more 
nearly fulfilled. 

So far back as 1847, when the League of the 
Sacred Heart was but just beginning, Father Lyon- 
nard — not yet a priest — made a religious promise — 
" under penalty of venial sin, to ask from God, every 
day, to suffer in order that the new Association of 
the Apostleship of Prayer may be firmly established." 
His ardent and self-sacrificing zeal doubtless helped 



VI 1 



to win special graces from God in favor of the new 
Association, then struggling for existence. It also 
brings to mind a curious and edifying fact that well 
illustrates the guiding providence of the Holy Spirit 
over a work destined to take so prominent a part in 
the Church's devotion. 

Christians have always recognized that prayer is 
an apostolic weapon, that is, prayer is available for 
the salvation of souls by drawing down the needed 
grace from God ; and thi'j power of prayer is multi- 
plied many times over by the union of many praying 
hearts in the same humble and confident demand. 
In 1844, a venerable director of future apostles of the 
word was inspired to associate them, during their 
period of waiting, in the Apostleship of Prayer. 
This was the late venerated Father Xavier Gautrelet, 
then Spiritual Father of the Jesuit Scholastics in 
Vals. This seminary united together, for the study 
of theology in immediate preparation for the priest- 
hood, students from widely separated parts of the 
world. It was the 3d of December — the feast of 
*St. Francis Xavier who, more nearly than any other 
Christian missionary from the earliest ages until now, 
has realized in himself the character of Christ's first 
Apostles. In his exhortation Father Gautrelet laid 
down the fundamental principle of the Apostleship 
of Prayer ; and from that day its practice was begun 
in the community. 

Among the chosen youth that listened to his 



Vlll 



words of zeal and devotion there were three destined 
to'take up the idea, which he cast out as seed by the 
wayside, and help to make it fruitful beyond all 
possible expectation. 

The first was Father Henry Ramiere, who was 
to make the Apostleship the basis of a universal 
League of Christian hearts with the Heart of Jesus 
praying and pleading for the Church and the salva- 
tion of souls. . He was to give it a final organization, 
with lay Promoters keeping alive and propagating 
ever more and more its Three Degrees of Christian 
devotion ; and he was to furnish it, for continued 
and safe direction, with a chain of official bulletins 
reaching round the world in the various but united 
Messengers of the Sacred Heart. 

The second was Father D re von, who gave the 
first definite impulse to the great pilgrimages to 
Paray— the sanctuary of all devotion to the Sacred 
Heart. His life-work, too, was to be united with 
the many spiritual movements of our day which have 
taken a lasting form and life in the Holy League. 
The Communion of Reparation, which he had founded 
in the Church, had already been recognized as the 
Third Degree of the Apostleship of Prayer when, at 
his death and in accordance with his wish, the Head 
of the Church finally associated its Direction with 
the General Direction of the League of the Sacred 
Heart. 

The third of these holy souls — " burning and 



IX 



giving light" — was the author of the present treatise 
on the Apostleship of Suffering. As has been said, 
the offering of our daily sufferings, in union with 
the Pleading and Agonizing Heart of Jesus, has 
always been an essential part of the Apostleship of. 
Prayer ; and thus, with his precious book left as a 
legacy to the Holy League, Father Lyonnard saw at 
his death his own life-work made one with that which 
had so stirred the hearts of himself and his compan- 
ions almost half a century before. 

R. S. DEWEY, S. J. 

Feast of St. Mary ad Nives, 5 August, 1890. 



I* 



I now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill 

up those things that are wanting of the sufferings of 

Christ, in my flesh for His Body, which is the 

Church. 

Colossians, i. 24. 



TO THE READER. 



Have you met with a book full of instruction 
and piety published under the title of "The Apostle- 
ship of Prayer" ? If the providence of God has 
not already placed this little work in your hands, 
hasten to obtain it without delay. You could not 
read anything which would be of greater benefit to 
your soul. Between the work just mentioned and 
that which we are now about to offer to your perusal, 
there exists a very intimate connection, and even a 
kind of relationship. We may venture to say that 
you can hardly derive full profit from the one with- 
out having studied and perfectly comprehended the 
teaching of the other. A few words of explanation 
will suffice to put this idea in the clearest possible 
light. The tabernacle or temple which was raised 
by Moses to the glory of the Most High God, con- 
tained two altars. The first stood opposite the porch 
of the temple, and was called the altar of holocausts. 
Here the victims were slaughtered, the rams and the 
heifers ; here was shed the blood of the bulls. The 
second altar arose majestically within the temple 
itself, occupying the place of honor opposite the 
Holy of Holies ; this was the altar of incense. 

1 



2 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

Every day at certain hours the Priests of the Lord 
came to burn sweet incense upon this altar, and its 
rich perfume ascended as an odor of sweetness to the 
throne of the eternal God. But as if this homage 
were in itself insufficient or even powerless to effect 
its object, Aaron, the High Priest, advanced, once 
every year, in all the pomp of his priestly office to the 
altar of incense, carrying in his hands a vessel full of 
blood, taken from the altar of holocausts, and this 
blood he poured upon each of the four corners of 
the altar, as a sacred anointing. In like manner 
does the Sovereign Judge of the world, the God of 
supreme power and majesty, require man, His rea- 
sonable creature, to render Him due honor by offer- 
ing Him a joint sacrifice of those two things which 
at first sight appear to be most completely opposed, 
to each other, blood and incense ; a requisition of 
deep symbolic meaning, containing instruction of 
the most exalted kind. 

To enable us to comprehend more clearly this 
symbolic ceremony of the Old Law, we may listen 
with advantage to the beautiful commentary of 
St. Gregory : "Know," says that great Pope, "that 
in the temple of your soul there are two altars, the 
Altar of Holocausts and the Altar of Incense. You 
will not be permitted to offer upon the one the 
incense of your prayers until you have shed upon the 
other the blood of a victim, — that is to say, until you 
have immolated your own passions. No ; you will 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 6 

not be permitted to enter into that sanctuary until by 
a full and suitable expiation you have found grace in 
the eyes of the Lord. The incense of your prayers 
will not ascend to Him as a perfume of sweet odor 
until you have subjected your will and your desires 
to God by an act of generous self-sacrifice. ' ' To 
suffer and to pray, with feelings of humility, confi- 
dence, and love, in union with Jesus Christ ; such is 
the sacrifice which is especially acceptable to the 
Lord ; such is the most certain and efficacious means 
of assuring our own salvation, and of contributing 
to the salvation of others. And now, pious reader, 
you perceive the intimate connection which exists 
between the Apostleship of Prayer and the Apostleship 
of Suffering. Prayer and Suffering are the two con- 
ditions of the supernatural life. If we separate the 
one from the other, especially in the exercise of our 
apostolical zeal, we run the risk of missing our mark 
entirely. The traveller requires two feet to walk 
upon ; in like manner the faithful Christian, who 
desires to take an active part in the great work of 
the salvation of souls, cannot take a single step with- 
out these two necessary supports, Suffering and 
Prayer. 

Behold, then, zealous Christians, who love the 
souls of men, which Jesus loved so tenderly, and 
for which He shed His Blood, behold a fresh stimu- 
lus to your zeal. An author who advocates one of 
the most holy undertakings of the present day, has 



4 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

said to you : "Pray for the souls of men ; your prayer, 
united to that of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, will save 
them." And in our turn, also, we lift up our feeble 
voice throughout this vast arena called " the world," 
in which so many poor children of Adam are still 
combating the enemy of all good, and we say to you : 
' ' 'Suffer for the souls of men : your sufferings, united 
to those of the Agonizing Heart of Jesus, will avail to 
save them." 

Jesus, the crucified One, the humble Son ot 
Mary, is now, as He ever was, the sole Mediator 
between God and men. If we and our contempora- 
ries are to be saved (and saved we shall be if we are 
truly humble), we shall owe our salvation solely to 
Jesus Christ crucified, and to the victims whom He 
condescends to associate with Himself in His Sacri- 
fice. "If the great human tragedy be not already 
coming to an end," writes a Catholic author of our 
own day; " if, after this triumph and this apostasy 
be ended, there still remains a future for this world 
of ours ; the world will be saved hereafter in no 
other way than it was saved at the beginning ; it 
will be saved because Christ has found martyrs to 
follow in His steps. Yet once again will liberty 
descend from Calvary, bleeding and immortal ; yet 
once again will it begin to implant in the hearts of 
men those eternal truths which alone have power to 
free them from servitude to man, as being alone 
powerful to make them children and servants of 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. £> 

God." In carrying out the great work of man's 
redemption, God does not follow two diverse plans. 
From all eternity He has resolved to save the world 
by the Cross ; and to the very last day of the world's 
existence He will steadily adhere to the same immu- 
table design. The prayer and the blood-shedding 
of Jesus in the Garden of Olives and upon Calvary 
rescued the whole world from the abyss of error 
and corruption in which it was then buried. The 
prayers and blood of the Martyrs of the three first 
centuries, united to the prayers and Blood of Jesus, 
the God-Man, completed that great work of regen- 
eration. Let no man deceive himself; this is still 
true : the prayer and blood-shedding of Jesus in the 
Garden of Olives and upon the Cross of Calvary can 
alone arrest the modern world upon the verge of the 
same abyss, into which the men of the present day 
are endeavoring to cast it, by bringing it back to the 
Paganism of former times. And the prayers and 
sufferings of Christians, the living members of Jesus 
Christ, will contribute in the most efficacious man- 
ner toward this great work of preservation and deliv- 
erance. As a pious writer has well observed : " The 
world is upheld by the merits of the Saints," and 
this remark is peculiarly applicable to the times in 
which we live. Yes, after Jesus, it is through the 
sufferings and prayers of the Saints — that is to say, 
of fervent Catholics — that the salvation of the pres- 
ent generation will arise. 



6 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

However great may be the contempt with which 
this ungrateful world regards them, how bitter soever 
the hatred with which it pursues their steps, let them 
be well assured that its fate is in their hands. But 
for the charitable intervention of those faithful dis- 
ciples of Christ who pray and suffer continually to 
avert the wrath of God from this wicked generation, 
it would long ago have endured the severest penalties 
of His Heavenly vengeance, or (worse than any 
punishment which could be inflicted) it would have 
been ruthlessly given up to its own reprobate sense. 
But the prayers and self-sacrifice of the Saints have 
caused God to withhold His hand, which was uplifted 
always ready to descend heavily upon it ; and this is 
the true reason why, in the midst of all those crimes 
and abominations which we daily witness, the infinite 
love of our Father in Heaven still bears with man, 
and continues to load him with His benefits. May 
His most holy Name be for ever blessed and praised ! 

For yourself, pious reader, you see as plainly as 
we can see them, the glaring evils of the present day. 
You surely are not willing to remain idle and inact- 
ive amidst so many miseries which your zeal might 
remedy; in the presence of so much good which 
your efforts might bring about. We feel convinced 
that when you have read this little book, you will no 
longer hesitate to take part in the peaceful crusade 
which is here proposed to you. The principal 
weapon of this holy war, together with prayer, is 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 7 

suffering, borne courageously in union with our Lord 
Jesus Christ ; and offered to obtain from the infinite 
mercy of God the cessation of those calamities with 
which our Holy Mother the Church is afflicted, and 
the destruction of those causes of ruin and scandal 
which are the means of every day precipitating such 
numbers of souls into eternal torments. Yes, beloved 
reader, in proportion to the number of those apostles 
of prayer and suffering who willingly devote them- 
selves to suffer and pray for the needs of this guilty 
world, will be the certainty of its return to God, and 
consequently of its attaining eternal salvation. Let 
this thought kindle fresh courage and zeal in your 
hearts during your study of this little work, which 
we offer with deep humility as an act of homage to 
the Agonizing Heart of Jesus, and to the Compas- 
sionate Heart of Mary. May those loving Hearts, 
those Victims of charity and sorrow, accept and 
bless our humble undertaking, and cause it to bring 
forth, a hundredfold, fruits of salvation in time and 
in eternity ! 



first part. 



The Divine Mission of Suffering. 



THE 

APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 



CHAPTER I. 

Suffering the inevitable condition of man upon earth. 

A holy writer has left us these words in a book 
which can never be too deeply studied !'* Go where 
you will, seek what you will, dispose and order all 
things according to your will, and you must ever 
find something to suffer — you must always find the 
Cross. Suffering, the inseparable companion of 
your mortal life, follows you with unwearying 
assiduity. Do not try to escape from it by hasty 
and sudden flight ; you will find no place of refuge 
where you will not carry your Cross with you. It is 
a part of your very existence. You carry the Cross 
in your members, the seat of all your pains ; you 
carry it in your soul, the doors of which stand open 
to all kinds of sorrow. Suffering is your guest every 
hour, every moment of the day : the Cross is to you 
another self. 

If this description seems to you to be exagger- 
ated, look into your own heart, and look around 

* Imitation of Jesus Christ. 

11 



12 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

you. Recall to remembrance your own past ; listen 
to your own sighs ; question the history of your 
former life, and complete the picture from the life 
of others ; for as regards sorrow your history is more 
or less the history of all other men. Let me suppose 
that you are a simple Christian living in the world. 
Is it not the case that there are very few pages in the 
journal of your life in which there does not appear 
some one of those expressions which, with countless 
shades of diversity, all signify one single thing — 
Suffering? Let us take a rapid glance back at some 
of those pages which have been too soon forgotten. 
To pass over the tears shed over your cradle, and 
during your childhood, let us, if you will, hurry on 
at once to the days of your youth and riper age. 
As to old age, the period of infirmity and decline, 
we know already that it is nought but labor and 
sorrow. The Holy Spirit has Himself declared this 
truth, and the daily experience of our lives confirms 
it : Labor et dolor. Take and read, then, that book 
of past experience, which contains so many salutary 
lessons. Tolle, lege. 

Here, then, is the page belonging to the time 
of your earliest education ; a time passed in alternate 
joy and sorrow : boisterous amusement, perhaps, but 
severe privations. We all acquire the first elements 
of science at the cost of painful and daily recurring 
sacrifices. The premature death possibly of a tender 
mother leaves us half- orphaned, and we shed bitter 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 13 

tears over her untimely grave. People say: "Poor 
child, still so young, and to have already suffered so 
much!" Let us proceed. The page which follows 
will, we trust, be less mournful. The sweet day of 
our First Communion. The joy of Heaven came 
down on our soul on that day together with our God. 
Why, alas ! must joy such as this be still mingled 
with bitterness ? The absence of a beloved mother 
from the holy Table has perhaps filled our souls with 
•grief; or our father is totally indifferent to religion, 
and refuses to accompany us. What, even so bright 
a day as this may not pass without a cloud ? And 
yet in all our life we may never again enjoy a day 
of such pure and unclouded happiness. We now 
approach the stormy period of youth : we unfortu- 
nately fix our affections on some dangerous friends. 
They lead us away with them into a course of dis- 
sipation and extravagance. Henceforth our life 
resembles that of the Prodigal Son. We pass 
through the various phases of his sad and unprofit- 
able existence. The same giddy thoughtlessness, 
the same thirst for pleasure, the same forgetfulness 
of duty, the same delusive dreams, the same decep- 
tions, the same distress, and, above all, the same 
remorse. In moments of silence and solitude, how 
does the remembrance of our mother, and of all her 
wise and pious advice, wring our inmost souls with 
unspeakable anguish ! At length, however, this 
tender remembrance, assisted by the grace of God, 



14 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

avails to bring us back to the paths of peace and 
holiness. We lay down at the feet of the minister 
of God the heavy burthen of our sins, and with the 
words of holy absolution the peace of Heaven 
re-enters our soul. But in order to preserve it, we 
must do violence to our own inclinations, and wage 
courageously a daily warfare against the enemies of 
our soul. Thus, then, our youth is passed amidst 
tempests, combats, frequent falls, and some victories 
dearly bought. 

I see how it is. You have suffered. Still, how 
many others have been far more severely tried ! You 
have never wanted bread, or shelter, or clothing ; 
and how many poor orphans have been deprived of 
all these things? You have always enjoyed good 
health ; and how many of the companions of your 
childhood, tender plants which withered before their 
bloom, languish under the weight of premature 
infirmities ? When you fell into sin, you rose again ; 
thanks to the infinite mercy of God, and to the 
prayers of your good Mother who is in Heaven. 
How many others have gone further than you have 
done in the paths of iniquity? how many have fallen 
from one depth of wickedness to another, and are 
still dragging about with them the heavy chain of 
sin and remorse ? Bless then the Lord. And now, 
having begun the history of your lives, let us follow 
it to the end. 

No sooner are we settled in the world than fam- 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 15 

ily cares and worldly business absorb our time and 
our thoughts. Fortune favors us for a period, but 
ere long her fickle breezes fail us, and soon among 
our numerous friends, and even relatives, enmity and 
ingratitude are found. However, the state of our 
affairs improves by degrees. The friends who had 
fled from us in the time of adversity now return. 
We watch the rapid growth of our beloved children, 
and rejoice when we think that they will one day be 
the support of our old age. Like wearied travellers, 
we pause awhile to take breath in the mid^t of our 
long and painful journey. But this repose is of short 
duration. Death comes a second time to turn into 
anguish our innocent happiness. In the course of a 
few years our aged father, or beloved spouse, or one 
of our children, is carried to the tomb ; and as if 
the cup of grief were not yet full, one of our two 
remaining sons destroys our peace, and wrings our 
heart by his licentious conduct, and the disrespect 
he shows to his parent. Amidst this succession of 
misfortunes, we begin to feel and understand that 
true repose is to be found in God alone, and in the 
accomplishment of His holy will. 

So then it was only after you had learned to 
accept the Cross with resignation that you succeeded 
in feeling any happiness in this world, where happi- 
ness is so rare. Yes, after so much sorrow, God was 
pleased to grant you that favor. Blessed for ever be 
His Holy Name ! Such, then, has been your life. 



16 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

It has been very stormy. Yes ! but I attribute these 
storms to my numerous sins. Had I been more 
faithful, I should assuredly have been more happy. 
You are quite right. You would at least have 
avoided the sharp trial of remorse. Still you must 
not imagine that any insurmountable barrier would 
in that case have been raised between you and sor- 
row ; only you would then have suffered with more 
courage. You would have found greater consolation, 
and have derived more fruit and gained more merits 
from your troubles. But suffering would still have 
been your portion. The necessity under which we 
labor of doing violence to ourselves in the steadfast 
pursuit of holiness, is in itself a sacrifice. The most 
sacred professions, the most retired cloister, are no 
protection against the Cross. And souls of the 
highest courage and virtue seek these abodes only to 
meet their Cross the more certainly. They find it 
there, indeed, with all its charms, but also with all 
the rigors of its holy severity; in the practice of their 
rule, in the observance of their vows — more especially 
of the vow of obedience, which crushes their own 
will twenty times a day ; so that there is no condition 
in which we can possibly place ourselves to which we 
may not with good reason apply those words of 
St. Augustine : " Our present life is a weary pilgrim- 
age — fugitive, uncertain, wearisome ; it exposes us to 
the contagion of every vice and of every crime, and 
entails upon us every kind of misery and misfortune. 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 17 

It ought not to be called Life, but Death." And, 
in fact, man dies every instant. What is a life dis- 
tracted by passions, exhausted by griefs? — a life 
which a breath can poison, which pleasures destroy, 
which sorrow consumes, and misfortunes abridge? 
Riches puff up and intoxicate, while poverty degrades 
us ; youth fills us with pride and self-sufficiency, 
while old age bows us under the weight of countless 
infirmities; sickness breaks us down, and sadness 
utterly overwhelms us. And all these miseries are 
succeeded by the implacable and inevitable enemy, 
Death ! 

It will be fitting here, in order to complete this 
sad picture of human grief, that we should speak of 
the trials through which it is the pleasure of our 
Lord to cause His most faithful servants to pass. 
We reserve the' discussion of this interesting subject 
to one of the following Chapters. For the present, 
we shall only sum up by saying that if you have 
already suffered much, you have in this respect only 
shared the common destiny of man. Some may 
have encountered fewer thorns, fewer trials on their 
path to Heaven ; but it is also true that many have 
met with far more than you have met with. All must 
drink their share of the cup of sorrow, either will- 
ingly or unwillingly. Every one of us must put his 
lips to it, and take long draughts of the bitter but 
salutary waters of the Cross. To be children of 
Adam, and to suffer, are things inseparable here 



18 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

below. And let us not fail to add, for our common 
consolation, that if this inevitable suffering be borne 
in a truly resigned and Christian spirit, it will be- 
come to us a fertile source of the highest spiritual 
benefit. 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 19 



CHAPTER II. 

Suffering a very efficacious means by which man is enabled 

to attain the chief end of his being : that is 

to say, to save his soul. 

In reading the preceding Chapter, the reader 
will not have misunderstood our intention. He 
must not suppose that because we have made choice 
of a simple Christian living in the world as our 
example of suffering, we on that account meant to 
address one class only of persons. If it were so, 
our meaning has been misapprehended, and we are 
to blame ,for having caused the error. In putting 
forward the instance of any particular individual as 
an instance of sorrow or suffering, our wish was to 
illustrate it from your own case, except the wander- 
ings of the Prodigal Son, from which, by God's 
mercy, our readers have been withheld. 

Even if we were Angels upon earth — "an 
Angel clothed with mortal flesh" — as was said of 
St. Aloysius Gonzaga, we should still be subject to 
suffering and pain, due to us as to all other children 
of Adam. Yes, whoever you are, to what condition 
soever you belong, whether you dwell in a palace or 
in the cloister's humblest cell, you must apply to 
yourself, with some few personal modifications, the 
whole of the preceding description : for suffering is 



20 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

the inevitable lot of every man; it mingles with his 
existence like the very air he breathes. But let me 
now point out to you another consideration which 
will give you great encouragement amidst the evils 
which are inseparable from our mortal state : this 
suffering which is so bitter to your taste, so agonizing 
to your heart, so humiliating to your feelings, is, 
nevertheless, one of the most efficacious means of 
enabling you to attain, with the help of God, to the 
great aim and object of your life — your last end ; 
that is to say, your eternal salvation. 

By suffering we understand whatever sad and 
painful events are appointed unto man to endure in 
the course of his mortal life. Thus illness, reverse 
of fortune, loss of property and of relations, the 
unfaithfulness of friends, domestic griefs, public 
calamities and national visitations, persecutions, the 
difficulties inseparable from the pursuit of virtue, the 
practice of Christian mortification, desolation, sad- 
ness, our last agony, our death : in a word, all those 
troubles which wring so many deep sighs from the 
heart of man, and such bitter tears from his eyes, 
— this is what we call suffering. 

It is of these many trials and sufferings that we 
say: They are the most efficacious means by which, 
in the present order of God's providence, in and 
through the merits of Jesus Christ, fallen man can be 
raised from his degraded state, and restored to the 
path of eternal salvation. 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 21 

For the full comprehension of this consoling 
truth it will be sufficient to observe that suffering is 
the great and chosen means of expiation, and it is 
through expiation alone that fallen man can be 
restored to a state of favor with his God. 

Ever since the fall of Adam, our first Father, 
a new and mysterious necessity has disclosed itself 
in the human race — the necessity of expiation. 
From that first and fatal sin, which was the origin of 
all our misfortunes, the whole of mankind have ever 
looked upon themselves as being in the position of a 
great criminal, and have instinctively felt the neces- 
sity of appeasing the wrath of God by means of 
sacrifice. From this cause has arisen the universal 
custom, found even amongst barbarous nations, of 
immolating victims, and placing sacrifice in the first 
rank amongst their religious rites. Doubtless, in the 
application of this craving, which naturally springs 
up in the heart of fallen man, many fearful errors 
have arisen. Savage nations, giving the most san- 
guinary interpretation to the principle, have immo- 
lated human victims, and sought to appease the anger 
of the Supreme Being by the most revolting cruelties. 
But in spite of the bloody character of these barba- 
rous ceremonies, they plainly and evidently attest 
the firm faith of all nations in the expiatory virtue of 
the shedding of blood. They all render in this 
respect unconscious testimony to the words of St. Paul, 
who in due time was to declare to all the people of 



22 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

the earth, while pointing to the God-Man crucified 
upon Mount Calvary, "There is no remission of sin 
for you if no blood be shed for you" Sine sanguinis 
effusione, non fit remissio (Heb., ix. 22). 

But let us penetrate to the depths of this great 
mystery ; let us ask ourselves what can have been the 
reason of this instinct of all nations, and of these 
words of the great Apostle. Let us inquire into the 
foundation of that universal conviction which 
attributes a power of perfect expiation of sins to the 
act of blood-shedding, and we shall find the expla- 
nation to be as follows : That as blood is the material 
source and principle of life in man, to shed our blood 
is to give our life. To give our life is to make the 
greatest sacrifice of which a man is capable. Our 
Lord Himself declared : "Greater love than this no 
man hath, that a man lay down his life for his 
friends." Major em hac dilectionem nemo habet, ut 
animam suam ponat quis pro amicis suis (John, xv. 13). 

But the outrage which man has committed 
against the Divine Majesty is so great, that to expiate 
it worthily he must have recourse to the greatest of 
all sacrifices, to the sacrifice of his own blood, and, 
consequently, to that of life itself. But after the fall 
of man his blood became worthless. It was now 
corrupted in its very origin, like a river springing 
from a poisoned source. Such a sacrifice cannot be 
acceptable to the God of infinite purity. Before 
such an offering could be acceptable to God, it was 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 23 

necessary that by a previous operation, the secret of 
which was held by Him alone, this blood should be 
purified from its ancient stain, and restored to its 
pristine purity. This marvellous operation, this 
mystery of Divine Grace, into the depths of which 
men and Angels in vain desire to look, has been 
accomplished for us by the Word of God, the Only 
Begotten of the Father, Who united Himself hypo- 
statically to our nature, by taking upon Him our 
flesh and our blood in the womb of the Blessed 
Virgin Mary, assuming a body without spot or stain, 
a blood purer and more limpid than the morning 
dew, rosy and bright as the rays of the noonday sun. 
Such is the Blood which God accepts in sacri- 
fice as the price of our Redemption. And on the 
condition of the expiatory sacrifice of this precious 
Blood of Christ, God pardoned the guilt of man ; 
and man, through the infinite virtue of that precious 
Blood-shedding, was in turn enabled to present him- 
self to God, and to offer Him his own blood, in the 
certainty of a gracious reception. Hence from this 
time forward the blood of the man-sinner being 
purified by the blood of the Man-God, is capable ot 
being offered to the Almighty as a sacrifice of expia- 
tion ; and God, Who loves His Son with an infinite 
love, in beholding the Divine Blood of that dear 
Son mingled with the blood of fallen man, forgives 
the sinner in virtue of the merits of the Blood of 
His own Son, shed for us upon the Cross. 

2* 



24 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

Let us now make a particular application of this 
consolatory doctrine to our present subject. Since 
it is certain that the Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, 
shed upon the Cross of Calvary, is the sole expiatory 
sacrifice which can be pleasing to the Father, it fol- 
lows that the personal expiations of fallen man can be 
agreeable to God only in so far as they are united to 
the expiation made by the Son of God, and thus are 
raised, in virtue of that union, to a divine dignity 
and value. 

It is undoubtedly true that by the shedding of 
His own Blood our Lord Jesus Christ made full and 
sufficient expiation for the sins of all men ; but it is 
His will that the particular expiation of each one of 
us should be united to His own, in order thus to 
make application of its virtue. If then you desire 
to participate in the divine efficacy and merits of 
the great Sacrifice consummated upon the Cross of 
Calvary, unite your expiation with that made by 
Jesus ; that is to say, mingle your own blood with 
the expiatory Blood of Jesus ; for without shedding of 
blood there is no remission, either for our own sins, or 
for those of others. 

Is it necessary, then, you will ask, in order to 
participate in the virtue of the Blood of the Son of 
God, that fallen man should also shed his own blood ? 
Assuredly, I answer, if the Divine Mediator had seen 
fit to render this condition obligatory upon us, no 
one could have questioned its propriety. He had a 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 25 

right to impose it ; but commonly He is willing to 
accept a less terrible sacrifice. However, we do not 
hesitate to affirm that in a certain manner He does 
demand, and does require of us, an offering of blood. 
But again you ask, "What blood does God require? 
Is it the blood which flows in our veins?" In reply, 
I would say that every Christian must be prepared to 
shed his blood in defence of his faith, and would be 
guilty of the crime of apostasy if, when the occasion 
arose, he should refuse to pay the tribute of his 
heart's blood to his Master and his King. Never- 
theless, we repeat that God does not ordinarily exact 
this greatest of all sacrifices. Listen to the words of 
St. Bernard ; he will supply you with the key to this 
enigma : Est martyrii genus, est qutzdam effusio san- 
guinis in quotidiana corpoi'is afflictione. The prac- 
tice of penance, from which no man can be entirely 
dispensed, the daily pains and afflictions which we 
suffer in our bodies, and we may add also in our 
souls ; all these are a species of martyrdom, a kind 
of shedding of blood. This is the martyrdom that 
God requires of you ; this is the effusion of blood 
that He demands of your soul. Do penance, bear 
with patience and fortitude the labor and fatigue to 
which your body is exposed, as well as the trials and 
afflictions which may come upon your soul, and then 
you are truly shedding your blood, you are making 
expiation for your own sins, and you may even make 
expiation for the sins of others also. And, surely, 



26 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

not in outward bodily suffering alone, but far more 
in the interior trials and pangs of the heart, is the 
true blood-shedding. You are sorrowful ; death, cruel 
death, comes to make a gulf between you and all 
around. Well, this is a bleeding wound cut in your 
heart ; through this wound the blood of your soul 
pours forth in copious streams. We speak thus in 
common conversation, and our usual forms of speech 
bear testimony to a great truth. We say of a poor 
mother who has lost her only and beloved son by 
the remorseless hand of death, " How her heart must 
bleed !" Let us then repeat with St. Bernard, giv- 
ing to his thought all the amplification of which it is 
susceptible: "Yes, bodily and spiritual afflictions 
are a kind of martyrdom, a form of shedding of 
blood." Est martyr ii genus, est qucedam effusio san- 
guinis in quotidiana corporis afflictione. In union 
with the Blood of expiation shed by Jesus Christ 
Himself, that mysterious blood which flows from 
every wound made by grief in the Christian heart, 
partakes largely of the expiatory virtue of the Vic- 
tim of Calvary ; and therefore the tears of penance, 
so well called by a holy person the blood of the soul, 
can efficaciously expiate and repair the worst sins 
and prodigalities of a guilty life. 

David was guilty of a great crime. God in His 
anger required him to make a solemn reparation. 
He commanded the Prophet Nathan to seek out the 
King, and to say to him in His Name, with holy 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 27 

daring: " Prince, thou art the guilty man (Tu es 
Me vir), and therefore the wrath of God is about to 
fall upon thee." David bowed his crowned head in 
lowly submission to the sentence pronounced by the 
messenger of God. Contrite and humble, he 
repented in dust and ashes, and when the wrath of 
God fell upon him, when the Prophet's words were 
fulfilled by the entrance of death into his house, and 
by the loss of his most cherished earthly treasure, 
then the holy King, with tears of bitter sorrow 
streaming from his eyes, smote his breast, and cried 
in true repentance, " Lord, I have sinned !" Peccavi. 
You know the end of this severe trial. The Lord, 
infinitely merciful, forgave the sinner, and continued 
to load the repentant King with fresh marks of His 
mercy and favor. 

You see, then, that there is in affliction, even in 
that which is the just punishment of sin, provided it 
be endured with patience and resignation, a salutary 
virtue of expiation ; and that it is, in consequence, 
a most efficacious instrument for enabling man to 
attain his last end, which is eternal salvation. 

And here, reader, let us unite in admiring the 
wondrous mercy and loving-kindness of Almighty 
God as it is shown to man in the chastisements 
inflicted upon him. "It is the will of God," says 
St. Augustine, "that we should be overwhelmed 
with afflictions, that we should become a mark for 
every kind of insult, humiliation, and contempt 



28 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

which the world can lay upon us, in order that we 
may wean ourselves entirely from all worldly affec- 
tions, and withdraw our hearts from the love of all 
created things, and thus raise them by holy desires 
to the search after that heavenly rest which can 
never be found in this mortal life." 

Since, then, the providence of God has sent you 
sorrows and tribulations, it is now that He is busying 
Himself specially about your happiness ; now is His 
chosen time for teaching you by the eloquent voice 
of suffering, and saying to you, Sursum corda. " Lift 
up your hearts. And since earth can henceforth 
be nothing to you but a path of trial and sorrow, 
raise your thoughts and affections above earthly 
things. Contemplate that heavenly region in which 
is My abode. There alone can your desires be 
satisfied." 

This is the only way of regarding suffering 
which is worthy of a Christian and of a disciple of 
Jesus Crucified. " The peculiar characteristic of 
the Gospel dispensation," observes Bossuet, "is the 
necessity of bearing the Cross. The Cross is the 
true trial of faith, the only sure foundation of our 
hope, the perfection of charity ; in a word, it is the 
path to Heaven. Jesus Christ died upon the Cross ; 
He bore His Cross all His life long; it is by the 
way of the Cross He bids us follow Him, and He 
offers us eternal life on this condition alone. The 
first person to whom He gave a particular promise 
of the rest of the future life was His companion on 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 29 

the Cross ; He said to him : ' This day thou shalt be 
with Me in Paradise.' When Jesus Christ was 
nailed to the Cross, the veil of the Sanctuary was 
rent in twain from the top to the bottom, and 
Heaven was opened to holy souls. When He had 
endured the Cross, and all the terrors of His suffer- 
ings and execution, He appeared to His Apostles, 
all glorious and triumphant over death, to teach 
them that it was by the Cross alone that He was to 
enter into glory, and that no other path to Heaven 
but this is open to His children. There is then 
great truth in the words of St. Cyprian, ' Sufferings 
are the wings with which I take my flight to 
Heaven."' 

We will close this Chapter with the following 
encouraging words of St. John Chrysostom : "To 
comfort those unhappy souls who complain of the 
trials which afflict them, and who have neither the 
courage nor the sense to endure them well, the 
Apostle St. Paul says, ' This light affliction, which is 
but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceed- 
ing and eternal weight of glory. ' And the meaning 
of this," adds the eloquent interpreter, "is as fol- 
lows : 'Affliction is a fountain of blessing to us in 
our mortal state. It strengthens our souls, and 
causes them to increase in wisdom ; and it procures 
for us advantages in the future which are far above 
any reward justly due to our labors ; — it will recom- 
pense us a hundredfold for all our combats and 
fatigues. ; 



i > 



30 THE APOSTLESKIP OF SUFFERING. 



CHAPTER III. 

How a Christian is raised by Jesus Christ to a Participation 

in the Divine Nature, or Deification of the 

Christian by Jesus Christ. 

As it is needful, in order to attain the Apostolic 
end which we propose to ourselves in this work, to 
display in their strongest colors the value and reward 
of suffering, we consider it advisable to look still 
deeper into fundamental principles, and to demon- 
strate by solid proofs the divine character, and con- 
sequently the divine fecundity, of Christian suffer- 
ing, in the order of saving souls. 

For this purpose it is indispensable that we 
should establish, in the first place, the divine char- 
acter of the Christian who is the subject of the 
suffering of which we speak. And, indeed, it is 
more than ever necessary in the days in which we 
live (when the most sacred truths of religion are 
denied with daring impiety by modern incredulity), 
that we should insist strongly upon the glorious doc- 
trine of our incorporation into Jesus Christ, — that is 
to say, the doctrine of the Deification of our nature 
by Jesus Christ. For these two reasons we devote 
the present Chapter to the subject. 

It is of faith that the Word of God, in uniting 
Himself hypostatically to our human nature, has 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 31 

elevated that nature to a divine condition ; thus we 
can say with perfect truth both of the soul and the 
body to which the Son of God is personally united ; 
the body is the body of a God, the soul is the soul 
of a God. 

We may say, speaking of the sacred functions 
performed by the body of Christ, and of the holy 
operations of this soul of Christ, that they are the 
actions, the operations of a God. Finally, if we 
are speaking of the pains of this body, of the tribu- 
lations of this soul, we may add, without the slight- 
est fear of falling into error, "These are the suffer- 
ings of a God." 

Now faith assures us, also, that by the Sacrament 
of Baptism the Christian contracts with the sacred 
humanity of Jesus Christ, and consequently .with 
His Godhead, a real and most intimate union, in 
virtue of which he is admitted to participate, in a 
certain measure, in the divine qualities of that 
august Humanity. We cannot do better, when 
writing upon so sublime and difficult a subject, than 
borrow from a recent publication of the learned and 
illustrious Bishop of Poitiers* certain passages which 
set forth this glorious truth in all its lustre. In main- 
taining against modern naturalism the dogma of the 
Incarnation of God the Son, and of its extension to 
our human nature, wherever it is found, the eloquent 

* Pastoral Instruction of the Bishop of Poitiers (Cardinal 
Pie) on the chief errors of the present day. 



32 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

prelate thus expresses himself: "Our deification in 
and through Jesus Christ is one of the fundamental 
truths of Christianity. In this truth we find the 
titles of our nobility in the present life, and the 
pledge of our happiness and glory in the life to 
come. The more naturalism shrouds in its darkness 
the world of sense, the more should sacred science 
devote its energies to bring into strong relief the 
complete mystery of Christ, the God-Man ; that is 
to say, the mystery of human nature deified by the 
hypostatic union in the one and undivided person of 
Jesus Christ, and by adoption in all the members of 
His body ; that is to say, His elect. And this deifi- 
cation involves the whole angelic and terrestrial 
creation of which man is the centre and the bond of 
union \ a deification which is so obligatory and so 
strictly commanded, that any one who is not 
endowed with this supernatural quality, will, when 
weighed in the divine balance, be found wanting." 
St. Augustine says, in fact, speaking of the 
Word made flesh : Addidit quod erat natures nostra. 
Doubtless the learned prelate is here alluding to this 
passage: "Ah, in this we behold the immense love 
of our Father Who is in Heaven ! In all past ages, 
and in all the countless ages yet to come, He has but 
one Son by nature. But although this Son is all- 
sufficient to Him, and although in this Son the whole 
of His fulness dwells, and the essential force of 
divine generation is exhausted, yet has He been 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 33 

pleased (not because His own happiness required it, 
but because He desired to increase the happiness of 
His creatures) to enlarge the circle of the family of 
God, and to communicate to other beings in time 
that title which from all eternity belongs of right to 
His beloved and sole-begotten Son. 

"O adorable economy of Grace! The Word, 
Who was, and ever will be, the only Son of God, 
equal and consubstantial with the Father, is made 
manifest in the flesh, and from the very instant of 
His Incarnation there was a man who might be 
called, and who was, in the fullest signification of 
the term, the Son of God ; that is, this Man was one 
single and identical Person with the Word of God, 
and the quality of Son of God dwelt in His inac- 
cessible unity, and did not communicate itself to any 
other individual nature of man. 

"It is doubtless true that, through the mystery 
of the Incarnation, human nature acquired a glorious 
affinity with God. But the mystery does not ; stop 
here. In consequence of sin, man had lost the priv- 
ilege of his vocation, of his supernatural destiny. 
He was despoiled of his gratuitous gifts, and was 
wounded even in his nature. He was born hence- 
forth in a fallen state, a state of spoliation and of 
suffering; nay, more than this, a state of sin and 
damnation. This mischief had been irreparable, 
if the Word, by Whom all things had been created, 
had not undertaken to become the Sovereign Rem- 
edy of all." 



34 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

Here the learned Bishop, quoting from St. Paul's 
Epistles, proceeds to explain the manner in which, 
by the effusion of His Blood, the Son of God made 
Man became at once this means and this remedy ; 
and after telling us that the application of this 
Divine Blood is made to each of us individually in 
the Sacraments, which in his energetic language he 
calls the "infiltration of the Blood of Jesus Christ 
into the soul" he completes this magnificent expla- 
nation of the doctrine of our incorporation with 
Jesus Christ in the following words: "On that day 
when we became Christians our initiation did not 
merely confer upon us a name ; it did not simply 
make us members of a household ; it did not merely 
bind us to hold fast the doctrine and teaching of 
Jesus Christ ; but it imprinted upon our souls a seal 
of resemblance, an indelible mark and character; 
it communicated to our inmost soul the spirit of 
adoption, by which we cry, ' Abba ' (Father), (Rom., 
viii. 15); and by the sacramental action of Baptism 
and of the other sacramental signs, but more espe- 
cially in the Blessed Eucharist, it insinuates into the 
inmost recesses of our nature the Blood of Him in 
Whom we are the adopted children of God. By this 
means we enter actually into His race and generation. 
Jpsius enim et genus sumus. And because we are 
of the race and offspring of God, genus ergo cum 
simus Dei (Acts, xvii. 28), and because our affiliation 
is not nominal only, but rigorously true and real, we 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 35 

become justly and rightfully His heirs — heirs of a 
common Father together with Jesus Christ, the Eldest 
Brother of our race; si filii et hczredes ; hceredes 
quidem Dei, cohceredes autem Christi (Rom., viii. 17). 
And thus it is that, although Christ still remains the 
only-begotten Son of the Father, He is, nevertheless, 
the First-born among many brethren, primogenitus in 
multis fratribus (Rom. viii. 29), and that in giving 
us this glorious appellation, He derogates in nothing 
from His own dignity : Propter quam causam, non 
confunditur fratres eos vocare (Heb., ii. 11). From 
this cause arises the common form of speech in which 
we are described as making but one body with Jesus 
Christ, of which one body He is the Head, and we 
are the members (1 Cor., x. 11) ; a body of which all 
the several parts and members, united and bound 
together by that which every joint supplieth, assist 
each other mutually, according to the grace given 
to each member, and form in one body that won- 
derful hierarchical organization which establishes 
dependence in unity, an*d order in multiplicity. 
Nothing is more familiar to the tradition and spirit 
of the earliest ages of the Church than this doctrine 
of the incorporation of men with Jesus Christ, and 
of the privileges as well as of the obligations which 
thus devolve upon ourselves." 

Our quotation has been a long one, but it was 
difficult to read these eloquent words, and not to yield 
to the desire, or rather to the need, of again and 



36 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

again drawing freely from so instructive a source ; 
for in every one of the lines quoted, as in the 
branches of a vigorous and prolific tree, there is an 
abundance of the sap of life, of that divine life 
concerning which the learned and pious prelate has 
received tne gift of discoursing so beautifully. 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 37 



CHAPTER IV. 

The Sufferings of the Christian raised to a Divine State by 
Jesus Christ, or Christian sorrow deified by Jesus Christ. 

It will not be difficult for our readers to perceive 
the practical consequences of the consoling doctrine 
which has been propounded in the preceding Chap- 
ters. Take care, then, to remember what has been 
said, and profit by it when the next tribulation comes 
to visit you in the name of the Lord. Since it is 
certain that your individual humanity is, by its union 
with the sacred Humanity of Jesus, raised to a 
divine state, to a real deification, it follows that all 
the actions and sufferings of your humanity, if you 
perform and endure them in union with Jesus Christ, 
will be raised in virtue of this union to a divine 
condition, to a real deification; in such a manner 
that as it may be said of your nature, united to Jesus 
Christ by Baptism and the other Sacraments, espe- 
cially by the adorable Eucharist, the nature is deified; 
— so may it be said of your actions and sufferings, 
done and endured in union with Jesus Christ : they 
are deified actions, deified sufferings, and consequently 
endowed with a divine power. We say, "done and 
endured in union with Jesus Christ," because without 
that condition your actions and your sufferings would 
remain in the lower sphere of what is earthly, nat- 



38 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

ural, and human ; and could not reach the superior 
regions of the heavenly, supernatural, and divine. 
In fact, that divine quality and state of which we 
treated in the preceding Chapter, is implanted in 
you by the grace of Baptism, and by the other sacred 
signs of grace, as a habit, and not as an isolated act ; 
as a kind of supernatural faculty which enables you 
to act supernaturally and divinely, but not at all as a 
divine action in itself. The generous Giver of this 
truly heavenly gift does not intend by thus commu- 
nicating to us a new and supernatural power, to 
deprive us of those natural faculties and powers 
which He has already bestowed upon us ; far less 
does He mean to deprive us of our liberty. On the 
contrary, having once prevented us by His grace, 
He desires that we should make it in some degree 
our own, by freely accepting it, freely adhering to it ; 
so that we may be enabled to act supernaturally by 
the assistance of the same grace. But we must not 
here anticipate what will hereafter be said respecting 
the practical condition of the deification of our 
sufferings in and through Jesus Christ. These will 
form the matter of a special Chapter later on. For 
the present we will confine ourselves to the definition 
and explanation of this deification, by setting the 
subject before our readers in the clearest possible 
light. 

The Son of God, in becoming Man, sanctified 
all the states and conditionsof men, and restored to 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 39 

us, upon certain conditions, that of which the sin of 
Adam had deprived us, our supernatural aptitude. 
To explain myself further : man by his act of dis- 
obedience had made himself the enemy of God. 
From that moment all his offerings to God became 
valueless. In this fallen state it was in vain for him 
to offer to God his sorrows or his joys, his prosperity 
or his poverty ; the Lord would have answered him 
as He answered the rebellious people of Israel : 
" What honor do I receive from the multitude of your 
sacrifices ? I am filled. ' ' Quo mihi multitudinem 
victimarum vestrarum dicit Dominus. Plenus sum 
(Isaias, i. n.) But the Son of God appeared upon 
earth to restore all things. 

In uniting Himself to our nature by His Incar- 
nation, He mingled with our humanity a divine 
essence by which it is revived, elevated, expanded, 
and deified. For the mortal element which corrupted 
it, and gnawed it like a cancer, He has substituted 
the quickening element of His own Blood, which 
restores the supernatural life which our nature had 
lost. From the ever-memorable moment of the 
death of our Lord Jesus Christ upon the Cross, man, 
regenerated by His atoning Blood, has found grace 
in the sight of God, and is henceforth permitted to 
bring Him an acceptable offering, the sacrifice of 
himself, the sacrifice of his possessions, honors, 
pleasures, and, above all, the sacrifice of his poverty 
and toil, sufferings and humiliations, and life itself. 

3 



40 • THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

Yes, we like to linger upon the thought, hence- 
forth these offerings made by fallen man — provided 
that they are made in union with the Sacrifice of the 
Cross — will be received by the Father as an offering 
of a sweet smell, a sacrifice truly acceptable unto 
God, and will be judged worthy of the -reward of 
eternal life. But of all the sacrifices which man as 
a member of Jesus Christ can offer to his Father in 
Heaven, none are so acceptable to Him as sufferings 
and afflictions patiently endured after the example 
and for the love of Jesus Crucified. 

The cause of this is that the Son of God, in 
becoming man, united Himself by preference to a 
poor, humble, suffering nature ; and by this choice, 
which conferred so much honor upon poverty, 
humiliation, and sorrow, He has communicated to 
each one of them, in a superior degree, the divine 
elevation and the divine character of which we are 
speaking. 

It is not thus as regards prosperity — that is to 
say, the riches, dignities, and legitimate pleasures 
of the world. Without doubt, our Lord blesses the 
right use of all these things, and renders them worthy 
to be offered to Himself. But observe the difference : 
He sanctifies temporal prosperity, while at the same 
time He refuses it for Himself; but He sanctifies 
affliction, and makes it divine, while He attracts it 
to Himself, and renders it, we may almost say, part 
of Himself, His very self. Both "prosperity and 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 41 

adversity, then, participate in the blessing and the 
life-giving influence of our dear Lord. But the 
greatest share of these is given to affliction ; that is 
to say, to poverty, humiliation, and suffering. Oh, 
what a consoling doctrine is this ! You are poor in 
worldly goods ; you feel the griping hand of poverty ; 
yet be comforted. The Son of God, by becoming 
poor, has made poverty divine. Endure it patiently 
in union with Jesus Christ, in His state of poverty 
and indigence ; and your poverty will be a treasure 
of inestimable price. By its aid you will draw 
nearer to God, the Fountain of all good, from which 
you would perhaps have wandered far distant had 
you been placed in a condition of greater prosperity ; 
because, in giving your affections entirely to the 
things of earth, you might have lost all taste for the 
joys of Heaven. You are now clothed with the gar- 
ment of sadness. But on some future day, the 
raiment of poverty which now covers you will be 
transformed into a rich mantle of glory. Pallium 
laudis pro spiritu moeroris (Isaias, lxi. 3). Or, you are 
humbled in the eyes of the world ; humiliations and 
scorn and contumely are heaped upon you by your 
fellowmen. Yet take comfort. The Son of God 
has made humiliation a divine thing, by taking upon 
Himself the form of a servant ; and if you endure 
this abasement in a spirit of faith, and unite it to the 
sufferings of your Lord, it will become your surest 
passport to a glorious immortality. 



42 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

Humiliation is a mysterious sponge which is 
passed over your life by an invisible hand to efface 
the stains of sin. Or it may be compared to a tissue 
of marvellous beauty, the full effect of which is not 
seen by you, because you only perceive a part of the 
general design : like those workmen in our great 
manufactories who execute magnificent designs with- 
out the result of their labors ever coming before 
their eyes, and yet their works are spread out before 
the gaze of the world, and are the admiration of all 
who contemplate them. And thus it is with you, 
afflicted and humbled souls. You are weaving a 
web of which the celestial beauty is invisible to your 
eyes now while you are upon earth. Like those 
workmen who labor for a country not their own, you 
only see the reverse side of the web you are employed 
upon. But wait a few days, a few years at the 
longest, and this piece of workmanship, which now 
seems so shapeless and deformed, will appear all 
bright with splendor. The dust and ashes of humil- 
iation have covered your brow, but soon they will 
be transformed into a crown of glory and brightness. 
Coronam pro cinere (Isaias, lxi. 3). 

Or perhaps you are plunged in sadness: some 
heavy trial has overtaken you ; you are overwhelmed 
by interior tribulation — the sorrows of wounded 
affection, the mortal agony of the soul ; or some 
unforeseen reverse of fortune has come upon you, 
and overshadowed your path in life with clouds of 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 43 

darkness ; a dangerous sickness detains you upon a 
bed of pain ; or perhaps death, pitiless death, has 
laid its cold hand upon your dearest earthly treasure. 
In your excess of grief you have exclaimed, with 
that king of whom we read in the Sacred Scripture : 
"O death, full of bitterness, how cruel are thy separa- 
tions /' ' Siccine separat amara mors / But still be 
comforted. The Son of God, when He drained the 
bitter cup of His most fearful agony in the Garden 
of Gethsemani and on the Cross, imparted a divine 
virtue, a sanctifying grace to all the tears which a 
Christian can shed, or the agonies which he can 
endure. 

Those painful trials which you are called upon 
to suffer, this inward desolation of the heart, 
wounded in all its dearest affections, are of immense 
value in the sight of God, if duly united to those of 
our Blessed Lord ; if you will only carefully mingle 
their bitter waters with that cup of agony from 
which the Son of God drank deeply in the Garden 
of Olives, and upon the Cross, and indeed through- 
out the whole course of His mortal life. For, as the 
pious author of the Imitation well observes: " The 
whole life of Jesus was a continual Cross and martyr- 
dom." Tota vita Christi Crux fuit et martyrium. 
Even a single one of these trials endured with 
patience, and for the love of God, suffices to open 
an inexhaustible source of consolation to the poor 
afflicted soul ; so much so, that — to make use for the 



44 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

third time of an expression of the Prophet Isaias — 
"Thy tears which have been to thee as the bitter 
waters of affliction, shall be changed into the oil of 
joy" Oleum gaudii pro luctu (Isaias, lxi. 3). 

Take courage, then, all ye children of sorrow, 
for your afflictions, united to those of our Blessed 
Lord, are possessed of a supernatural and divine 
virtue. Sanctified by this union, your suffering is 
elevated to a divine condition ; it shares in the sig- 
nal honor of deification. For such a reward as this, 
is there a Christian who would not willingly consent 
to suffer? who will not joyfully exclaim with St. Paul, 
who understood so well the divine worth of suffer- 
ing : ' ' God forbid that I should glory, save in the 
Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ ' ' ? Mihi autetn absit 
gloriari nisi in cruce Domini nostri Jesu Chris ti 
(Galatians, vi. 14). 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 45 



CHAPTER V. 

The Divine Efficacy of the Sufferings of Jesus 
Christ, our Head. 

Having, then, clearly established in the preced- 
ing observations that our sufferings are raised to a 
divine state through our Lord Jesus Christ, we will 
now proceed farther into the subject, and by enter- 
ing into some details show in what respect these 
sacrifices are deified — that is to say, what are the 
divine effects which they produce, both in favor of 
the Christian by whom they are endured, and in 
favor of those for whom they are endured. But in 
order that a doctrine at once so consoling and so 
sacred may be proved to the reader in the most solid 
manner, let us be careful not to separate it from the 
divine principle to which it owes all its weight and 
efficacy, no less than the branch of the tree owes its 
life to the trunk on which it grows. Of this com- 
parison, Jesus Christ Himself makes use, and to it 
we shall take frequent occasion to return. Ego sum 
vitis vos palmites (St. John, xv. 5). " I am the Vine, 
ye are the branches." Let us then speak of the 
divine efficacy of the sufferings of Jesus Christ, our 
Head, so that it may be more easy for us to compre- 
hend the divine efficacy of the sufferings of the 
Christian, who is a member of Jesus Christ. 



46 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

The sufferings of our Blessed Saviour being 
divine, in consequence of His being God-Man, they 
derive from this sacred character an efficacy of a 
nature which is nothing short of divine. By these 
sufferings, in fact, Jesus Christ makes full and com- 
plete reparation for the injury done to Almighty God 
by man in rejecting and violating His holy laws. By 
these sufferings He also redeemed and delivered 
mankind from the punishment to which they were 
justly- reserved by the righteous vengeance of God. 
By His precious sufferings and death Jesus made a 
perfect reparation to His outraged Father, and by 
means of this complete act of reparation He became 
our Mediator with God, and the Author of our eter- 
nal salvation. 

St. Thomas, in developing with his usual pro- 
found wisdom all the consequences and effects which 
flow to us from the Redeemer's Cross and Passion, 
proposes to himself various questions. He asks 
whether by the passion — that is to say, by the suffer- 
ings and death of our Lord Jesus Christ — we have 
been delivered from sin, from the power of the devil, 
and from the penalty due to sin ; whether we are 
reconciled to God ; whether the gates of Heaven 
have been opened to us ; and, finally, whether by 
these sufferings Jesus Christ has merited to be Him- 
self exalted and glorified. To each of these weighty 
questions he answers unhesitatingly in the affirmative, 
and proceeds to say that "by the Passion of Jesus 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 47 

Christ we are set free from sin, from the tyranny of 
Satan, and the punishment due to our crimes." Is 
it not written in our sacred books concerning the 
Divine Saviour: "He loved us, and washed us from 
our sins in His own blood " ' ? JDilexit nos et lavit nos 
a peccatis nostris in sanguine suo (Apocalypse, i.). 
Jesus, by means of the price of His blood, offered to 
God the Fa*ther, Jesus, the voluntary victim of His 
charity and obedience, has delivered us who are His 
members. 

Just as the human body, although it is composed 
of divers members, is yet but one body, so the whole 
Church, which is the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ, 
is regarded by God as one person with its Head, 
Who is Jesus Christ Himself. In shedding His 
Blood for us who are His members, our Divine Head 
has therefore paid a price for us, and in this manner 
He has delivered us from sin, and consequently also 
from the punishment due to sin, and from the power 
of the devil. His flesh which was sacrificed for us, 
was the holy instrument employed by the Godhead 
for the accomplishing of this happy deliverance. 
By means of this flesh the sufferings and actions of 
our Saviour worked their effect with an efficacy 
nothing short of divine. 

St. Thomas continues : "By the Passion of Jesus 
Christ we are reconciled to God, and the gates of 
Heaven are opened to us." The proper effect of 
this sacrifice is to appease the wrath of God. And 

3* 



48 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

is not the Passion of Jesus Christ the most precious 
and the most acceptable Sacrifice which ever has 
been, or ever can be, offered to the Almighty and 
Eternal God ? How could it then be possible that 
the Passion of Christ should not effect our reconcili- 
ation with God? The voluntary sufferings under- 
taken by Christ were a good of such value in the 
eyes of His Father, that because of this 'good which 
He saw offered to Him by human nature — that is to 
say, by the nature to which His only begotten Son 
was hypostatically united — God was appeased for all 
the offences committed by our race. And how could 
it be otherwise? 

How numerous and weighty soever these offences 
may have been, the charity of our Lord in His suf- 
ferings and death has been far greater ; greater even 
than the wickedness of those who put Him to death. 
Can we be astonished that His Passion was of more 
power to reconcile God with the whole race of man 
than to provoke Him to anger and vengeance? Can 
we be surprised at finding that the same Passion has 
opened to us the gates of Heaven ? It was sin alone 
which closed them against man ; in the first place, 
the sin common to all mankind — that is to say, the 
sin of our first parent Adam, transmitted to all his 
descendants, which we call original sin ; and, sec- 
ondly, the special or actual sin which every man 
commits by his own act. 

Our Blessed Lord has delivered us by His 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 49 

Passion not only from the sin which is common to 
all mankind, and this both as regards guilt and the 
penalty due to it, by paying for us the price of our 
redemption ; but He has delivered also from his own 
sins — that is to say, from actual personal sins — each 
one of those who participate in the merit of His 
Passion by faith, by charity, and by a diligent use 
of the Sacraments. His grace is not refused to any 
one, and by it all may have a share in the benefit of 
His Cross and Passion. 

And thus it is that the gates of Heaven are 
opened to us by means of the Passion of Jesus 
Christ. 

The last question the Angelic Doctor answers 
as follows: "Beyond doubt, by His Passion Jesus 
Christ has merited to be exalted and glorified for 
ever." And why? Because in His Passion He 
humbled Himself, and laid aside His dignity for 
the love of His Father in four principal things ; for 
each of which He has merited to receive a special 
glorification from His Father's hand. First, He 
humbled Himself below His dignity in the Passion 
itself and in the death which He endured, although 
He was not a debtor to justice, owing either the one 
or the other, as we are — that is to say, He was not 
subject to pay that double tribute of suffering and 
death to God's justice. In return for this self- 
abasement, God the Father owed to His Son the 
glory of the Resurrection ; and Christ received this 



50 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

glorification when He left the tomb on the third day- 
after His ignominious death upon the Cross. 

Secondly : By His act of self-abasement in per- 
mitting His body to be laid in the sepulchre, and 
suffering His soul to descend to the lower parts of 
the earth — that is to say, to Limbo — He has merited 
to receive the glory of His ascension into Heaven. 
St. Paul himself makes this assertion, "He also 
descended first into the lower parts of the earth. He 
that descended is the same also that ascended above all 
the Heavens" (Ephesians, iv. 9). 

As for the shame and confusion with which He 
was publicly loaded during His Passion, and by 
which He again humbled Himself for the love of 
God His Father, below His own proper dignity, He 
has merited to sit at the right hand of God the 
Father, and to show forth the glory of His Divinity. 
It is again St. Paul who gives us this assurance : 
"He humbled Himself becoming obedient unto death, 
even to the death of the Cross, for which cause God 
also hath highly exalted Him, and hath given Him a 
Name which is above all names ; thai at the Name of 
Jesus every knee should bow, of those that are in 
Heaven, on earth, and under the earth ' ' (Philippians, 
xi. 8). That is to say, that He should be called and 
recognized as God by all men, and that all created 
things should render Him that respect and honor 
which are due to God. Finally, for abasing Himself, 
and humbling Himself, by giving Himself up into the 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 51 

hands of men ; by submitting to the judgment of 
man, of whom He is Himself the Judge, as He is 
also his Creator and the Sovereign Master, He has 
merited to receive the power of judging the living 
and the dead. 

And here may fitly follow, as an eloquent sum- 
mary of the contents of this Chapter, those beautiful 
words of Pope St. Gregory : "In beholding so many 
miracles, and such great marks of power shining so 
gloriously in Jesus Christ, there was no room for 
scandal in the minds of those who witnessed these 
things ; there was room only for astonishment and 
admiration. But that which gave great offence and 
scandal to the minds of the unbelieving was to 
behold His death, after all the miracles which He 
had worked." 

" l We preach," 1 St. Paul exclaims, 'We preach 
Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling-block, and to 
the Gentiles foolishness.'' It has, in fact, been ever 
regarded as folly by men that the Author of life 
should for them suffer death. And man has made 
an occasion of offence and scandal out of this very 
thing for which he .ought to have felt the greatest 
obligation and gratitude. For God merits to 
receive more worthy homage from man in propor- 
tion as He has suffered, for the love of man, treat- 
ment more unworthy of His glory and greatness." 

Such, according to St. Thomas's summary of 
the Catholic doctrine upon this point, are the mar- 



52 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

vellous effects of the Redeemer's Passion, Sufferings, 
and Death. How sweet it is to think that as we are 
members of Jesus Christ, our sufferings, united to 
those of our glorious Head, participate to a certain 
extent in the same divine efficacy. By these, in 
fact, the Christian who endures them cheerfully 
makes reparation in and through Jesus Christ to the 
outraged glory of God. By them he obtains for 
his own salvation, and if he asks it for the salvation 
of others, a large and abundant supply of the suffer- 
ings and merits of the Son of God. The following 
Chapter will show in a still clearer light this truth, 
which is so consoling, so encouraging in all our 
afflictions. 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 53 



CHAPTER VI. 

The Divine Efficacy of the Sufferings of the Christian as a 
Member of Jesus Christ. 

Let me address myself to you, O Christians, 
afflicted and sorrowful, souls tried in the furnace of 
tribulation, whatever may be the nature of your trials 
and sufferings ; whether it be sickness, infirmity, 
poverty, reverse of fortune, loss of friends, family 
trials, painful separation from those most dear to 
you ; or whether it be calumnies, persecutions, 
difficulties in the path of holiness, voluntary expia- 
tions, temptations, dryness, mental trials, wounded 
affections, oppression of the heart and spirits ; or, 
again, fears, sadness, apprehensions, regrets, bitter 
remembrances, mortal sickness, the last moments of 
life : whatever may be your troubles, as members of 
Jesus Christ, by the grace of holy Baptism, and of 
the other Sacraments, but more especially by the 
Sacrament of the Most Holy Eucharist, you enter, 
in virtue of this divine incorporation with your 
Divine Head, into participation with' Himself — that 
is to say, with His life, His virtues, His merits, His 
sufferings, and His divine nature : Divinae consortes 
naturae. The Apostle St. Peter gives us this assur- 
ance. When you suffer, Jesus Christ suffers in you. 
Take care to keep your suffering united to that of 



54 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

your Divine Head ; so shall that divine life, that 
most desirable life, the life which He lives as God- 
Man, be developed in you, poor child of Adam, just 
as the sap flows from the trunk into the branch with 
which it is united, communicating to it its own 
fertility and life. Thus your sufferings, purified 
by union with the sufferings of your Divine Head, 
will enable you to enter into participation for your 
own personal profit, and, if certain conditions be 
observed, for the profit of others, in all the effects of 
His Passion. Our reasoning is based upon the sup- 
position that you are in a state of grace — that is to 
say, that you are united as a living member to your 
Head, joined as a fruitful branch to the Tree of Life. 
Unless this condition be fulfilled, the divine sap 
which gives life to the sufferings of the Christian 
will be checked in its circulation, and it will have 
no other effect upon you than the momentary one of 
putting an end to your state of spiritual death — that 
is to say, of restoring you to such a condition as will 
enable the circulation of spiritual life to take place 
in you once more. We shall explain at the end of 
this Chapter how suffering, patiently endured by the 
sinner who has lost the divine life, acts efficaciously 
so as to restore the treasure which he has forfeited. 
Supposing, then, that you are in a state of grace, 
we address you thus : Happy disciple of Jesus Christ, 
your sufferings, united to those of your Divine Mas- 
ter, have an efficacy which is nothing short of divine. 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 55 

By means of these sufferings you free yourself more 
and more from the sad effects of your sins, and you 
prevent the devil from again establishing his domin- 
ion in your heart. Suffering, if endured with faith 
and patience, by supplying you with a most effica- 
cious means of making ever-increasing satisfaction 
for your sins, will furnish you with a most efficacious 
means of making satisfaction to the divine justice 
for the debt for which you are perhaps still in some 
degree responsible — that is to say, for the temporal 
penalty due to your sins. By your sufferings, more- 
over, you obtain the remission of those venial sins 
which you have committed through negligence or 
weakness. And this is no slight advantage, espe- 
cially in the eyes of a truly spiritually minded 
Christian, who beholds in the clear light of faith 
how hurtful to the soul's advancement in the paths 
of solid perfection, is venial sin committed deliber- 
ately and habitually. And it is thus that our suffer- 
ings, in delivering us from the sad remains of sin, in 
purifying our souls ever more and more, fill up in us, 
according to the doctrine of St. Paul, that which 
was wanting in the Passion of Jesus Christ : Adim- 
pleo ea quae desunt passionum Christi. By this ener- 
getic expression, as we shall explain more fully here- 
after, the great Apostle gives us to understand that 
the sufferings of Jesus Christ, in order to be fully 
applied to us, require to have completion and per- 
fection given them by our own ; and that as our 



56 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

Divine Head was compelled to suffer, so all His 
members must suffer with Him if they hope to par- 
v ticipate in the benefits of His Passion and Death. 
Sz tamen compatimur, ut et conglorificemw. If it had 
been otherwise, that admirable and divine harmony 
which now exists between the Head and the members 
of the "Mystical Body of Jesus Christ," as it is 
called in the inspired language of the Church, would 
be negatived and destroyed. For what harmony can 
there be between members who have never known 
sorrow and a Head Who is crowned with thorns? 

By means of His Passion, Jesus has reconciled 
you with God His Father. By your sufferings united 
to His, you obtain a renewed confirmation of that 
blessed reconciliation, — that is to say, an augmenta- 
tion of sanctifying grace, which is its precious assur- 
ance and pledge, or rather which is in you, by Jesus 
Christ, this very reconciliation itself. You enter 
more fully into fellowship with the Father, because 
your sufferings effect in you a more perfect resem- 
blance to His well-beloved Son. There is nothing, 
in fact, which the Father so delights to find in the 
members of His Son as a resemblance to the suffering 
and crucified life of that same Son. For this reason, 
too, there is nothing which the Divine Son takes so 
much delight in offering to God the Father, as the 
continuation of His own sufferings in the members 
of His Mystical Body. Ah ! if the sorrows which 
we all endure in passing through this vale of tears, 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 57 

may fitly be accounted for in the requirements of 
Divine Justice, still more truly are they explained 
by the transcendent love of Jesus for His Heavenly 
Father. As now that He is in glory, He can no 
longer surfer, "for Christ being risen from the dead, 
dieth no more, suffer eth no more;" He, neverthe- 
less, desires to suffer for His Father's love, and for 
our love, in the person of His members ; in them 
He delights to reproduce Himself as in so many 
suffering and crucified Christs ; thus perpetuating to 
the end of the world His own loving and sorrowful 
Passion. He designs also to show us in this way 
the eminent advantage which we all derive from 
thus suffering in union with our Divine Head, by 
Whose heavenly virtue our sufferings are made divine. 
And therefore it is that He gives us so large' a share 
in His chalice and in His Cross; and the more 
deeply the Christian drinks of this salutary but bitter 
cup, the more abundantly is his soul strengthened 
and refreshed by that fountain of living waters 
springing from the tree of life ; a stream which is no 
other than the life-giving Blood of Jesus Crucified. 

Christian soul, member of Jesus Christ, you are 
suffering, and you complain ; perhaps even you are 
murmuring against the divine will. Ah ! rejoice, 
rather, and bless the Lord, by Whose paternal hand 
you are smitten. This trial, which to you seems so 
severe, is a visit from your God, as is said by holy 
Job, that perfect type of sorrow and patience : 



58 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

' ' Thou dost visit him every morning, and try him every 
moment." Visitas eum diluculo, et subito probas ilium 
(Job, vii. 1 8). This trial is a new and higher degree 
of incorporation of your whole being into your 
Divine Head, Jesus Christ ; and it is consequently a 
more abundant participation of His divine life, and 
a fresh guarantee of the friendship of God for you, 
and of your reconciliation with Him. 

If you are so unfortunate as not to be in a state 
of grace when the trial is sent to you, yet be assured 
that it is none the less a visit from our Lord to you ; 
a trial by which He gives you a gracious invitation 
to return to the bosom of your Father. And this 
leads us to say that suffering is exceedingly advanta- 
geous, even for the sinner who is in a state of mortal 
sin. Without doubt, such a one does not merit by 
his sufferings, with a merit properly so called ; that 
is to say, with that merit which confers a right to 
the remuneration founded upon strict justice and 
condignity, de condigno, as the theologians express it. 
But yet by enduring these sufferings with humility 
and submission, he acquires a kind of merit of con- 
gruity, which disposes God favorably toward him, 
attracts to him a glance of divine mercy, and thus 
prepares the way for the eventual reconciliation of 
the sinner with his God, by the recovery of the 
sanctifying grace which he had lost. How many 
poor wandering sheep have thus been recalled to the 
fold ! How many poor sinners have been thus 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 59 

restored to friendship with God, and fully reconciled 
to Him by the instrumentality of sickness, reverses, 
affliction, misfortune ! It was this feeling that 
caused David to say : "It is good for me that I have 
been afflicted." Bonum mihi quia humiliasti me 
(Psalm cxviii.). It was this that made the Wise 
Man exclaim, "It is better to go into the house of 
mourning than into the house of feasting ;" meaning 
to teach us by that maxim that, taking things as a 
whole, in the present state of mankind, suffering is 
more salutary for us than pleasure. The reason of 
this is that suffering is able, by detaching us from 
our intense affection for earthly things, to bring us 
closer ,to God, the Fountain -of all good; whilst 
pleasure only serves to turn us away from God, by 
attaching us more and more to the perishable things 
of earth. 

Therefore when you are visited by sorrow or 
adversity, whatever may be the state of your soul at 
the time, accept this trouble submissively, resign 
yourself, and bless the hand of God, saying with the 
holy patriarch Job: "The Lord has given, and the 
Lord has taken away, blessed be the name of the 
Lord. ' ' Dominus dedit, Dominus abstulit, sit Nomen 
Domini benedictum (Job, i.). God had bestowed 
upon you health, worldly goods, family comforts; 
now He has taken them away again, blessed for ever 
be His holy Name. He had granted you the conso- 
lations of the spiritual life, clear light, holy inspira- 



60 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

tions, and sensible fervor. You no longer seemed 
to feel the weight of your Cross, for the Holy Spirit 
had poured His sweet unction upon it, and rendered 
it light and easy. But suddenly all this happiness 
disappears, and is succeeded by desolation, darkness, 
heaviness, and a kind of paralysis of soul in all that 
relates to perfection. What can you do in this state 
of darkness? Say again, and say ever: "The Lord 
gave, and the Lord hath taken away. As it hath 
pleased the Lord, so hath it been done unto me, 
blessed be the Name of the Lord." Sit Nomen 
Domini benedictum. The good and merciful God 
knows far better than we do what is most wholesome 
and salutary for us. - 

Let us then with equal gratitude receive from 
His hand consolation or desolation ; and let us 
remember that this sickness, this infirmity, this 
reverse of fortune, this affliction under which you 
groan, is a precious particle of the Cross of Jesus. 
It is a drop of His atoning Blood falling upon you 
from His open Wounds, and bringing you comfort 
and salvation. 

If at the moment when that beloved Redeemer 
was expiring on Calvary, you had had the happiness 
of standing at the foot of His Cross, and if a drop 
of His Blood had fallen from His Sacred Wounds 
upon your clothing, with what respect and love 
would you not have gathered up that sacred relic ! 
But, I ask of you, as often as our Lord visits you by 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 61 

tribulation and sorrow, do you not receive in a cer- 
tain manner the very same unspeakable favor ? inas- 
much as your sufferings (when you take care to unite 
them to those of Jesus Christ) are by that means 
united also to His divine and precious Blood. So 
that if we were to squeeze with the hand, so to say, 
the sufferings of a Christian, we should cause the 
blood of the Son of God to issue therefrom. Jesus, 
as the Head of His Mystical Body, unites so closely 
the sufferings of His members with His own suffer- 
ings, that He makes them one with His own ; just as 
His members form but one Mystical Body, of which 
He is the Head. Ah ! what a different aspect does 
suffering present when considered from this higher 
point of view, from that in which we are generally 
accustomed to contemplate it. Just in proportion 
as it appears sad, humiliating, and overwhelming, 
when not illuminated by the light of faith, — when 
not accepted from supernatural motives — so does it 
now become invested with peculiar attributes of 
sweetness and sublimity, which rejoice the soul of 
man, even while they afflict him, and ennoble even 
while they humble him. Suffering is like the rose 
that flourishes close beside the thorn ; suffering is a 
fruit of exquisite sweetness, hidden under a hard and 
bitter rind ; suffering is the purest gold buried under 
a coarse covering of earth. Can we then be sur- 
prised to find that trials endured with patient resig- 
nation render us acceptable to God, and open to us 



62 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

the gates of Heaven? Can we wonder that they 
enable us to be one day glorified with Jesus Christ 
in the eternal mansions of the blessed ? This con- 
soling truth we shall proceed to discuss at length in 
the succeeding Chapter. 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 63 



CHAPTER VII. 

God's Recompense for Christian Suffering. 

Although it would not be correct to say of our 
sufferings that by them we are lowered in dignity 
(for what abasement can possibly be too great for 
one who has offended the infinite Majesty of God?) r 
yet we cannot but admire the mercy and goodness 
of the Almighty. By a disposition of His infinite 
clemency, it is so ordained that suffering procures 
for the Christian, who endures it with piety and 
resignation, a degree of glory proportionate in its 
extent to his previous affliction and humiliation. 
And here you may again recall to remembrance the 
holy example set before us by the patriarch Job. 
He was completely overwhelmed by tribulation. 
In his excess of grief, his life became a burthen to 
him, and he exclaimed: il Wherefore, O my God, 
hast TJwu brought me forth out of my mother s womb ? 
Are not my days few in number ? Spare me, that I 
may weep a little over my sorrow, before I go whence 
I shall not return : to the land of darkness and the 
shadow of death, a land of misery and of darkness 
itself, where the shadow of death dwells, and no order 
reigns''' (Job, x.). This land of darkness is the 
tomb. If, like Job, you feel that sorrow and tribu- 
lation are little by little undermining your life, if 
4 



64 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

your sickness has brought you so near to the gates of 
the grave that in a few months or days you expect 
to sink into it, then remember that this same Job, 
having given utterance to his grief, and with a voice 
of bitter lamentation exclaimed again : ' 'Have pity 
upon me ! have pity upon me ! all ye at least who are 
my friends ;" suddenly raises himself above his 
affliction by a sublime effort, and cries aloud, with a 
hopeful heart : "Oh that my words were written, that 
they were graven in the rock for ever. For I know 
that my Redeemer liveth, and that I shall rise again 
from earth. ' ' See how the sure and certain hope of 
the resurrection comforts him amidst his most severe 
trials. 

Let it be thus also with you, afflicted souls ! 
The more numerous and painful your afflictions, the 
more you are conscious that suffering is digging a 
deep tomb beneath your feet, the more you may be 
assured that you will receive continually increasing 
abundance of God's gifts. From this depth of 
humiliation you will arise to a new life, to more 
energetic resolutions, to more solid piety, to a virtue 
more prolific in actions of generosity. You shall 
have your glorious ascensions; those ascensions 
from strength to strength, from grace to grace, of 
which the Psalmist speaks when he says of the just 
and afflicted man who puts his hope in the Lord : 
"He has prepared ascensions in his heart in the valley 
of tears. ' ' Ascensiones in corde suo disposuit, in valle 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 65 

idcrymarum. He will go from strength to strength, 
for the Supreme Lawgiver, Whose behests he has 
faithfully accomplished even in the time of his 
deepest sufferings, will pour forth His blessing upon 
him. Etenim benedictionem dabit legislator, ibunt de 
virtnte in virtutem. "And God shall be seen in 
Sion. ' ' Videbitur Deus deorum in Sion. That is to 
say, the life of God, the divine life of Jesus, shall be 
seen and manifested in you, afflicted soul, as in 
another Sion in which He delights to dwell. This 
divine life shall be bestowed upon you with a kind 
of plenitude, and in you shall be accomplished the 
most anxious desire of the Good Shepherd, Who 
wishes nothing so ardently as to behold His sheep 
receiving with increased abundance that divine life 
of which He is Himself the inexhaustible source and 
fountain : Ut vitam habeant, et abundantius habeant. 
The oak of the forest takes deeper root in the 
earth, and grows more vigorously, just in proportion 
as it is buffeted by the tempest. And so does tribu- 
lation, in pouring all its waves and storms over your 
devoted head, ground you more firmly than before 
in the practice of faith and virtue. There is noth- 
ing, in fact, which gives more strength to the soul, 
and fortifies it more effectually in the service of God, 
than temptations vanquished, than trial borne cour- 
ageously, for the love of God. Like an intrepid 
wrestler, the disciple of Jesus Christ becomes more 
agile and vigorous with every combat successfully 



66 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

endured. And tribulations, in the merciful designs 
of Providence, not only become the means of ena- 
bling us to expiate our sins, and of detaching us 
from the things of earth, but they also ground and 
establish us more and more in the practice of virtue, 
especially of humility, patience, self-contempt, and 
the love of God and of our neighbor : and conse- 
quently they aid us in acquiring new merit, and in 
preparing for us hereafter, as St. Paul expresses it, 
' ' an eternal weight of glory. ' ' jtEternum gloria? 
pondus operatur in nobis. 

How could the Christian who suffers thus cour- 
ageously in union with Jesus Christ, his Divine Head, 
fail to receive an abundant share of His glories and 
celestial joys ? How could it be that, after partici- 
pating so freely, for the love of Him, in the chalice 
of His agony and death, he should not hereafter 
enjoy a glorious resurrection, a glorious welcome to 
the courts of Heaven ? How could he fail to receive 
from the hand of God, as an eternal reward, "an 
inheritance unspeakably great, excellent, and eter- 
nal?" Has not St. Paul said: "If we suffer with 
Jesus Christ, we shall be also glorified with Him ' ' ? 
Si tamen compatimur, ut et conglorificemur (Romans, 
viii.). 

You have suffered with Jesus Christ, you have 
borne patiently, for His sake, this sickness, this 
adversity, this painful loss of a father, mother, 
brother, sister, or of the beloved child on whom all 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 67 

your earthly hopes were fixed. You have accepted 
with love and submission the trials of the spiritual 
life — temptations, dryness, desolation, intense pains 
and agonies of the soul. You have then fulfilled 
the condition laid down by the great Apostle : 
Si tamen compatimur. And if you continue faithful, 
you will assuredly witness the verification of the 
second part of the oracle in your own person, and 
be glorified in Heaven with Him for Whose love you 
have suffered freely upon earth : Si tamen compatimur, 
ut et conglorificemur. The example of St. Paul him- 
self is a sure warrant and guarantee that you will not 
be disappointed of your hope, for he says, in speak- 
ing of himself, and of all that he had endured for 
the sake of Jesus Christ, "I have fought a good fight ; 
I have finished my course ; I have kept the faith : 
he7iceforth there is laid up for me a crown of justice, 
which the Lord the righteous Judge shall give me at 
that day. ' ' Bonum certamen certavi, cursum consum- 
mavi, fid em servavi ; in reliquo reposita estmihi corona 
justitice. (II. Timothy, iv.) 

Yes, crosses — sufferings — for the Christian who 
bears them patiently in union with Jesus Christ his 
Divine Head, are a sure pledge of predestination. 
The following touching thought is from the book 
called The Man of Prayer, by the Jesuit Father 
Nonet. 

" Glory, grace, and the Cross are wondrously 
bound up together. The Eternal Word has first 



68 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

united them in His own Person and then in that of 
His Blessed Mother, and last of all in the person of 
each of His elect; so that, if one of these three 
shining marks of their predestination be taken from 
them, their names will be blotted out of the book of 
life. The Cross is the measure of grace, grace is the 
measure of glory. If you refuse the Cross offered 
you by the Son of God, you will shut out His love 
from your soul and lose your crown." 

This explains how the Saints, enlightened from 
on high, prized and loved suffering to such a degree 
that they seemed to have a holy and insatiable thirst 
for it. 

We read this in the life of St. Mary Magdalene 
of Pazzi, an heroic Saint of the Cross. In her last 
illness, while she was in great pain, a nun whom she 
had trained in the noviceship showed compassion for 
her sufferings and said to her : " Mother Mistress, it 
is very strange that God should give you every day 
some new subject of suffering. ' ' The Saint answered : 
" Dear Sister, from my youth up this is what I have 
always desired, and I consider it a very great grace ; 
I have been in the habit of asking for it in a special 
manner after each of my Communions." To this 
she added : " The practice of patience is so sublime 
a thing that the Eternal Word of God, Who in the 
bosom of the Father enjoyed all the delights and 
good things of Paradise, came down on earth to 
clothe Himself with the garment of suffering and 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 69 

patience, which He could not find in Heaven. Now 
the Word was God, and He could not deceive us. ' ' 
To another Sister who expressed compassion for 
so much suffering, the Saint made answer: "I rest 
satisfied with all which it is God's good pleasure to 
give me, and to Him from my heart I make the 
sacrifice of every consolation — provided only I may 
be saved." 



70 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

The Divine Efficacy of Suffering endured for the Salvation of 

Souls. — The Divine Mission of Suffering 

in Jesus Christ. 

Having hitherto shown the happy effects of suf- 
fering in ourselves, we must now explain how by 
union with Jesus Christ our Lord we are enabled to 
exercise the apostleship of suffering — that is to say, 
how by means of these sufferings we may become 
the instruments in the hands of God of working out 
the eternal salvation of others. This we hope will 
be found to be the legitimate conclusion drawn from 
the following considerations, which are intended to 
demonstrate the divine mission of suffering in effect- 
ing the salvation of souls. By the expression the 
divine mission of suffering, we understand that in and 
through Jesus Christ, the sufferings of Christians, 
who are the members of His Mystical Body, are 
destined in an especial manner to complete, to "fill 
np," as St. Paul expresses it, the work of Redemp- 
tion which was accomplished by the Son of God. 
To place this important matter in all its light, it will 
be necessary to explain, in the first place, the divine 
mission of suffering in Jesus Christ Himself, and also 
in the establishment of the Catholic religion. 

The Son of God, in fact, in communicating to 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 71 

His sufferings a divine virtue, bestowed upon them 
at the same moment a divine mission, which is that 
of saving the world. For this end He suffered, and 
for this He died upon the Cross. The Catholic 
Church being entrusted with the continuation of His 
divine work, or rather with its application to the 
world at large, is necessarily associated with the 
sufferings of the Son of God, and also with the 
divine mission of His sufferings. The Church, as 
the sole depositary of the merits of the Redeemer, 
is founded upon the Cross, has been extended, and 
is still propagated by the Cross, and will also receive 
its final consummation by the Cross ; so that the 
inspired words uttered by St. Paul, Christum oportuit 
pati, " Christ must needs have suffered" (Acts, xvii. 
3), seem to overshadow all ages of the Church, from 
Calvary to the end of the world. They are like a 
divine word of command which all generations of 
men are bound to obey, under penalty of being for 
ever excluded from the benefits of Redemption. 
That Jesus Christ has conferred a divine mission 
upon His own sufferings ; that by His death upon 
the Cross He inaugurated in His own person the 
apostles-hip of suffering ; and that He established His 
divine religion by the Cross, — what fact is there 
more clearly demonstrated than this in all history ? 
From its station upon the heights of Golgotha, the 
sacred Sign of our Redemption rules supreme over 
all ages and all nations. 
4* 



72 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

The eye of man is ever directed from every 
region, and from the remotest point of space, to that 
mysterious mountain whence cometh our salvation, 
where the Cross, appearing like a glorious beacon 
light, illuminates the darkness of successive centuries 
by its rays of heavenly brightness, and guides over 
the troubled waves of time all generations of man- 
kind, in their ceaseless voyage toward eternity. 
From before the coming of Christ, the Cross cast, by 
a marvellous anticipation, its divine glory over the 
most remote ages, even when from the very cradle 
of the world its reflection was still dimly seen. 
Isaias had beheld it in prophetic vision long before 
the day which saw it raised on Calvary ; he cried, 
beholding the Sacred Victim Who was suspended 
upon it, et Behold the Man of Sorrows /" Virum 
dolorum. li Surely He hath borne our griefs, and 
carried our sorrows" Vere languor es nostros ipse 
tulit, et dolores nostros ipse fiortavit." (Isaias, liii.) 

All those types in the Ancient Law which pre- 
figured with more exactness than others the Redemp- 
tion of the human race by Jesus Christ, bore, it may 
be observed, some express reference to the shedding 
of blood upon the Cross : the just Abel murdered by 
Cain ; Isaac, an obedient victim, bearing on his 
shoulders the wood for his own sacrifice ; Joseph 
sold into bondage by his brothers ; Job, the perfect 
type of patience and suffering ; Jeremias, the prophet 
of lamentations and tears, weeping over the Passion 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 73 

of the God-Man, as if he had been present at His 
death ; — in a word, nearly all the principal person- 
ages of the Old Testament, but more especially the 
Prophets who were taught to predict the future 
Saviour, were the living figures of His sufferings. 
Listen to St. Paul, celebrating in magnificent lan- 
guage the faith and courage of those holy witnesses 
and martyrs by anticipation, in testimony of the 
God-Man : "They had trial of cruel mockings and 
scourgings, of bonds, moreover, and imprisonment ; 
they were stoned, they were cut asunder, they were 
tempted, they were put to death by the sword, they 
■wandered about in sheep- skins, in goat- skins, beiiig in 
want, distressed, afflicted, of whom the world was not 
worthy, wandering in deserts, in mountains , and in 
dens, and in caves of the earth." Quibus dignus non 
erat mundus. In solitudinibus errantes, in montibus 
et speluncis et in cavernis terra. (Hebrews, xi. 38.) 
Now, why did they suffer thus ? Because they were 
the precursors and figures of the great Victim of 
Calvary, and were thus obliged to exhibit in their 
own persons some among the peculiar features of 
His Cross and Passion. By thus suffering and pray- 
ing throughout those long dark centuries of sad and 
earnest expectation, they averted the just anger of 
God from this guilty earth. "These men," says a 
learned commentator, "were of a dignity so great 
that the world was not worthy to possess them. 
By their prayers, and by their saintly lives, they 



74 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

obtained from God the preservation of towns, of 
provinces, even of the world itself; they turned 
away the wrath of God from sinful men, who might 
otherwise have been swallowed up in another deluge. ' ' 
Do you now see how efficacious was the apostleship 
of suffering even before the coming of the Messias ? 
How much greater will the marvellous virtue of this 
apostleship become after His first appearance 
amongst us? If the prayers, the sufferings, the 
merits of the Saints of the Old Law exercised so 
salutary an influence over their contemporaries, how 
much more shall the prayers, the sufferings, and the 
merits of the Saints of the New Law, after Jesus 
Christ has really shed His Blood upon Mount Cal- 
vary, exert a healing, saving influence on their own 
generation, as well as on the world at large? 

The Messias, so long desired of all nations, has 
at length appeared. From His cradle to His tomb, 
His life bore the impress of sorrow, and, as we may 
say, the seal and stamp of the Cross to which He 
was to be affixed for the redemption of the whole 
race of mankind. It had been thus decreed by God 
the Father in His infinite wisdom: "Christ must 
needs suffer." Christum oportuit pati. He spent 
three years of His mortal life in preaching the Gos- 
pel, but before, during, and after His ministry, He 
suffered continually, until He crowned the sacrifice 
of His whole life by a death of agony upon the 
Cross. Jesus, then, became the Mediator between 
God and Man, in virtue of His sufferings and death. 



THE AP0STLESH1P OF SUFFERING. / £> 

The Cross of Christ is the only means of attain- 
ing salvation for us poor children of Adam. This 
has been determined by a decree of Him Who never 
changes. "Through Him to reconcile all things unto 
Himself, making peace through the blood of His 
Cross," as St. Paul expresses it : Per sanguinem crucis 
ejus (Colossians, i. 20). 

From this incontestable principle we may pro- 
ceed to consider what further remains to be said with 
respect to the divine mission of suffering in the liv- 
ing members of Jesus Christ. 

But first let us complete what has been said with 
these few thoughts. It was so true that "Christ must 
needs suffer" and die that St. John, in the Apoca- 
lypse, where he speaks of Jesus Christ — the Lamb 
offered in sacrifice — does not hesitate to say: "He 
was slain from the beginning of the world" Qui 
occisus est ab origine mundi (Apocalypse, xiii. 8). In 
truth, it was by the eternal decree of God that the 
Christ was held ready — predestined — for the sacrifice ; 
and in the eyes of God, to Whom all things are ever 
present, He was already offered up from all eternity. 
But that which, for four thousand years, was only a 
sacrifice decreed and as it were virtually anticipated, 
became a fearful reality to the Saviour Christ from 
the first instant of His mortal life, and most of all in 
His Agony in the Garden of Olives, during His 
Passion, and at His death. 

We have the testimony of the great St. Catha- 



76 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

rine of Siena to this continual offering of the Man- 
God in sacrifice. The author of her life tells us 
that, when she spoke of our Saviour's sufferings, she 
very often declared, with a tone of entire certainty, 
that in His soul He had borne the Cross from the 
first moment of His conception, because of His 
exceeding great desire for the salvation of all men. 
Jesus Christ loved God and man with a perfect love, 
she would say ; and therefore He suffered within His 
Heart the torments of a real martyrdom until, by 
His Passion and death, He had restored to God that 
honor of which man's sin had robbed Him, and to 
man that salvation which he had forever lost by his 
sin. Imagine not, she added, that this Cross was 
light and easy : No, it was very great and very 
heavy. 

This is the declaration of a Saint to whom our 
Lord deigned to reveal Himself and whom He 
closely associated with His own crucified life. It is 
moreover the common opinion of all, summed up in 
the well-known words of the author of the Imitation 
of Christ : " The whole life of Christ was a Cross 
and a martyrdom." 



THE AP0STLESH1P OF SUFFERING. • 1 1 



CHAPTER IX. 

The Divine Mission of Suffering exemplified in Mary, the 
Mother of Jesus. 

When it pleases the Divine Redeemer to associ- 
ate any of our' race with Himself in His work of 
reparation, He associates them at the same time with 
that instrument or means of reparation which He 
made choice of for the redemption of the world, — 
that is to say, with the Cross. 

And it is for this reason that the Catholic 
Church, which has received from Jesus Christ the 
mission of continuing His work of reparation 
throughout all the ages of the world, by applying 
the merits of our Redeemer to mankind, bears ever 
on her brow the bleeding Sign of the Cross, and is 
ever subject*to persecution and suffering. From this 
cause arises the title of militant, bestowed upon our 
Mother the Church, which is also applicable in a 
greater or less degree to each one of her children. 
And thence to those souls which our Blessed Lord 
condescends to associate more particularly with 
Himself in His great mission of reparation, He 
grants a share in His sufferings commensurate with 
the part which He has assigned them in co-operating 
in this great work. We need not quote more than 
one instance, the most glorious of all ; for who does 



78 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

not know that the most excellent of all creatures, 
she who is called by the Fathers and Doctors the 
second Mediator of the world, was also its second 
Victim ! she whom we invoke under the title of 
Mother of God, and Queen of Apostles, Mater Dei, 
Regina Apostolorum, is also invoked by us under the 
title of Virgin of Dolors, and Queen of Martyrs, 
Virgo dolorosissima, Regina Marty rum. While read- 
ing in the Gospel the prophecy of holy Simeon, have 
you never been struck by the close connection 
which he establishes between the sorrows of Jesus 
and the sorrows of Mary, — that is to say, between 
Jesus the Victim, and Mary the Viciim, for the sal- 
vation of souls? " This Child,'''' exclaimed he, "is 
set for a Sign that shall be contradicted. ' ' /// signum 
cui contradicetur. And he adds immediately after- 
ward to Mary: "And thine own soul a sword of sor- 
row shall pierce. ' ' Et tuam ipsius animam pe?'tran- 
sibit gladius. The remainder of the Blessed Virgin's 
life was a continual application of this prophecy. 
From that time forth, the life of Mary becomes, like 
that of her Divine Son, a perpetual cross and mar- 
tyrdom. Her certain prevision of the torments and 
death of her Son, and after He had expired upon the 
Cross the sad and bitter remembrance of His Agony 
and Passion, were to her as a two-edged sword, 
which inflicted upon her maternal heart a wound 
which was incessantly renewed. 

But it was more particularly at the foot of the 



THE AP0STLESH1P OF SUFFERING. 79 

Cross that she felt the full sharpness of this sword, 
because it was in that place, above all others, that 
she was especially associated with her Divine Son in 
the work of our redemption. Yes, it was upon that 
Calvary, whence the Blood of Jesus poured forth in 
copious streams, that Mary has brought us forth in 
sorrow to the life of grace, receiving into her com- 
passionate heart the reflex, as it were, of the suffer- 
ings and death of her Divine Son. And there also 
it was that she solemnly accomplished her mission of 
Second Victim of the human race. The world had 
been lost and ruined by the sin of a man and 
woman ; and by a man and a woman it was to be 
saved. This man is Jesus, at once God and Man ; 
this woman is Mary, Mother of God made Man 
for us. 

Yet it is undoubtedly true that, as there is one 
only God, so is "there one only Mediator between 
God and man, the Man Christ Jesus" Unus enim 
Dens, units et Mediator Dei et hominum, homo Christus 
Jesus (I. Timothy, ii.). And it is no less true that 
this divine and only Mediator chose to give a special 
share in His work of mediation to her from whom 
he had received His human life. And for this 
reason it is that He has associated her so intimately 
with His Cross, which is the instrument of our 
Redemption. It would be impossible for us to 
determine the extent to which Mary co-operated in 
that great mystery ; this secret is known to God 
alone. 



80 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

In Heaven we. shall discover, with many other 
marvellous revelations, the ineffable relations of 
intimacy that existed between Jesus and Mary — 
between the work of the Son and the co-operation 
of the Mother — such as our weakness would now be, 
perhaps, unable to comprehend. Non potestis portare 
modo. But we need not fear to go astray in assert- 
ing, with St. Epiphanius, that Mary was the Medi- 
ator between earth and Heaven, and the natural 
means of effecting their union. Ipsa enim est coeli 
et terrce mediatrix qum unionem naturaliter peregit. 
May we not also say that at the foot of the Cross 
Mary resembled a mystic chalice, in which all the 
Precious Blood of our dear Redeemer was with 
anxious care stored up, to be thence distributed to 
future generations of mankind? Does not Holy 
Church herself give us to understand this when she 
calls Mary "Mother of divine grace" — Mater 
divincR g7'aticz — of that grace which flows to us with 
the sap of the tree of life, — that is to say, with the 
Blood of our Blessed Lord flowing in torrents on* 
Calvary from His streaming Wounds ? Does not 
this explain those titles which we are taught by the 
holy Doctors of the Church to apply to Mary — 
"Channel of grace," "Dispenser of grace"? 

It is from her that the Apostles, and by their 
hands the whole Church, received that precious 
treasure by which we are enabled to purchase our 
title to life eternal. And was it not most appro- 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 81 

priate that Jesus, Who received from Mary all that 
Blood through which He had His human life, should 
confide to His Mother the same Blood, now become 
the Blood of God ? 

In divine love are many unfathomable mysteries, 
depths of infinite delicacy and tenderness. Who 
shall be able to comprehend all that must have been 
felt by the most loving of all Sons toward the most 
loving of all Mothers ? 

However that may be, let us never forget that 
after Jesus, it is Mary who has contributed most 
fully to the great work of the reconciliation of the 
human race, not only because she is the Mother of 
the Redeemer, but also because she shared with Him 
the office of Victim for our salvation ; and because 
the Cojnpassion of the Mother perfectly corresponded 
to the Passion of the Son. Hence arises that work 
of the supernatural life with which the Blessed Virgin 
has never ceased, throughout the whole course of the 
centuries since the foundation of the Christian 
religion, to co-operate in the Church, and in the 
souls of men. Hence that universal and most potent 
influence which the Catholic sense has unanimously 
attributed to her in the onward march of those events 
which concern Holy Church in general, and each 
one of her members in particular. Is there a single 
age of the Church when Mary has not proved her 
protection over us, her children, by striking signs? 
Or is there a single child of the Church who is not 
indebted to Mary for many and signal benefits? 



82 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

If, then, you inquire the reason of this continual 
and most efficacious intervention, we reply : " It is 
not only because Mary is Mother of God, and 
Mother of Men, but also because she is the Second 
Victim for the sins of the world ; and because she, 
in this capacity, desires most ardently that neither 
her own sufferings nor the sufferings of her beloved 
Son should be lost to the children of Adam, who 
are now become her own children by adoption. It 
is because, in the person of Mary, suffering has 
received, from and through Jesus Christ, a divine 
mission, even that of co-operating in the salvation of 
the human race. O sinners, remember the tears, the 
groans of your Mother, and be converted ! Gemitus 
Matris tiuz ne obliviscaris (Ecclesiastes, vii. 29). 
Such, then, is the divine mission of suffering, in the 
order of the salvation of souls. Upon suffering, as 
upon a firm and immovable foundation, has the Son 
of God established the beautiful edifice of our holy 
religion, which springs from His Blood and His 
Sorrows, as the flower from its stem. The founder 
of the Catholic religion is a Crucified Man — "a 
man of sorrows." Virum dolorum. 

She who co-operates with Him- in the work of 
our Redemption is a victim associated in His Passion ; 
a Virgin of sorrows. Virgo dolorosissima. 

Who can now doubt of the divine mission of 
suffering? Who shall dare to doubt of the divine 
virtue of the apostleship of suffering? 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 83 



CHAPTER X. 

The Divine Mission of Suffering exemplified in the Apostles, 
Martyrs, and Apostolic Men of all Ages. 

After Mary, it was the Apostles whom Jesus 
chose to be the most intimately associated with Him 
in His work of reparation, and consequently in His 
Cross. He chose them to co-operate with Him as 
leaders in His great enterprise, on the condition that 
they should consent to labor in it, like Himself, by 
suffering and self-sacrifice. One day when He was 
alone with them, He said : "The Son of Man must 
suffer, and be rejected by the ancients and chief priests 
and scribes, and be put to death, and the third day 
He shall rise again." And to make them under- 
stand the perfect resemblance to their Crucified 
Master which they should endeavor to attain, He 
added, speaking to Christians in general : "If any 
man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and 
take up his cross daily and follow Me ; for whosoever 
would save his life shall lose it, and he that shall lose 
his life for My sake shall save if (St. Luke, ix. 22). 
In other places He predicts persecutions which they 
will have to endure because they are His servants 
and His ministers. "Remember," He says, "My 
word that I have spoken to you : The servant is not 
greater than his lord. If they have persecuted Me, 



84 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

they will also persecute you." Si me per secuti sunt, 
et vos persequentur. (St. John, xv. 20.) 

Observe that when our Lord addressed these 
words to His disciples, He had just before conferred 
upon them their Apostolic mission, by saying to 
them : "You have not chosen Me, but I have chosen 
you, and have appointed you that you should go and 
should bring forth fruit, and your fruit should remain. ' ' 
Utfructus vester maneat. (St. John, xv. 16.) By this 
connection our Divine Master gives His disciples to 
understand that persecutions and sufferings are insep- 
arable from the Apostolic ministry which He has 
conferred upon them ; and that, in proportion to 
their sufferings and voluntary endurance of the Cross 
for His sake will be the fruitfulness of their ministry 
in the salvation of souls. As He proceeds, He con- 
firms the truth of this doctrine, and adds to it the 
most touching encouragement, saying to them : "In 
the world you shall have distress ; but have confidence, 
I have overcome the world." In mundo pressuram 
habebitis ; sed confidite, ego vici mundum. (St. John, 
xvi. 33.) 

Such was the destiny of the Apostles: as living 
images of their Master, they were to be the perpetu- 
ators of the teaching of His Passion. They were to 
preach to the people Jesus Crucified ; they were to 
surfer and die with Him and for Him. Apostles 
both in word and deed, they were to water with their 
blood the doctrine which they were to preach in the 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 85 

name of Jesus Crucified. When scorned and rejected, 
they were to be still full of joy, because they had 
been judged worthy to suffer shame for the name of 
Jesus Christ. Ibant gaudentes, quoniam digni habiti 
sunt pro nomine Jesu contumeliam pati. (Acts, v. 41.) 
When their last hour should arrive, they were to be 
quite ready to lay down their lives for Jesus Christ, 
and for the souls which He redeemed by His own 
Blood. The Prince of the Apostles, St. Peter, was 
to die upon the Cross, like his Master before him. 
As indefatigable laborers in the Lord's vineyard, 
after having watered it with their sweat, they were 
also to water it with their blood. All, without 
exception, were to be victims and martyrs. Thus 
the Catholic faith having been founded on the 
Cross, received its earliest propagation by the Cross. 
But what do we next behold? Three consecu- 
tive centuries of persecution have passed over this 
religion, which, carried by Apostles bearing the 
Cross to the farthest extremities of the known world, 
is received by ungrateful men who strive to drown it 
in seas of blood. Thus does the work of regenera- 
tion, begun on Calvary, still attain its end by the 
means which heralded its commencement — that is to 
say, by blood-shedding ; by the Passion of Christ 
perpetuated in His members ; in a word, by the 
Cross. Ah ! how full of truth is that expression of 
Tertullian, Sanguis Martyrum semen Christianorum. 
"The blood of the Martyrs is the seed of the 



86 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

Church." To any one who may be inclined to 
doubt it, we would say : Go to Rome, and enter the 
catacombs, where during these three centuries the 
bleeding and mutilated corpses of the Martyrs were 
interred. In this very place, where that noble blood 
was poured out like water, once arose the proud and 
haughty capital of the heathen world — the Rome of 
the Emperors ; and now, over the ruins of this 
heathen Rome, rises the capital of the Christian 
world — the Rome of the Pontiffs, of the Vicars of 
Christ Crucified, successors of the crucified Peter, 
successors of the Apostles, and themselves all Mar- 
tyrs. The Cross has overcome the sword ; the idols 
have been overthrown by the blood-shedding of the 
Saints. From Mount Calvary, where it first arose 
amidst shame and ignominy, the Cross has been 
transplanted in triumph to the Janiculum ; and 
there, as on a throne of glory, Christ rules the world, 
and reigns victorious over the ruins of conquered 
paganism. Christus vincit, regnat, imperat. All 
glory to the Cross of Christ ! Glory to the Martyrs, 
who are the children of the Cross ! Let all due 
honor be paid to their sacred remains, and to their 
tombs, venerable with the age of eighteen centuries. 
Let us listen to the touching relation of a pious 
pilgrim who described what he saw in those sacred 
catacombs, which form so imperishable a monument 
of Christian courage, and such an unanswerable 
proof of the wonderful fertility of the apostleship of 
suffering for the salvation of souls. 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 87 

"I was filled with admiration, and moved to 
tenderest devotion, when I beheld the Catacombs of 
St. Sebastian, in the immediate neighborhood of 
Rome, where the bodies of the holy Apostles St. 
Peter and St. Paul lay hidden during more than two 
centuries, where the Pontiffs offered the Sacred Vic- 
tim, preached the word of the Gospel, conferred 
holy orders. These subterraneous caverns were 
excavated by the Christians to the extent of several 
miles in length, so that they reach to the sea; in 
many places large apartments are hollowed out, and 
the road winds like a labyrinth. They resemble an 
underground city. Here and there, on each side of 
the road which traverses them, I observed the sepul- 
chres of the Martyrs, excavated with care, and 
placed in successive stages in the side wall of earth 
or rock, each one fitted to contain a single body. 
In the place which is called the Cemetery of St. 
Callistus, one hundred and seventy-four thousand 
Martyrs and Virgins were entombed. The place 
where Virgins repose is indicated by the figure of a 
dove, and the tombs of the Martyrs by a palm, 
engraven upon the sepulchral stone. If I had not 
seen all this with my own eyes," adds the pious pil- 
grim, "I could never have believed in the existence 
of such a marvel — such great tribulations and such 
great constancy in the early Christians who exca- 
vated these immense caverns with so much pains and 
care, preparing them, maintaining them in repair, 
5 



88 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

and making them their abode. Indeed, there can 
be no reasonable doubt that- these catacombs were 
used, not only to afford burial to the dead, but a 
safe refuge and place of abode to the living. The 
Acts of the Martyrs fully prove this fact ; amongst 
others, those Acts of St. Cecilia in which we read 
that Valerian being sent by her to the holy Pope 
Urban, to receive baptism from his hand, found him 
hidden amongst the tombs of the Martyrs. And 
thus all these Saints and illustrious personages, these 
first Pontiffs of the Church of Christ, of whom the 
world was not worthy, dwelt amongst the dead in 
the dens and caves of the earth, deprived of the 
light of day ; and even in those gloomy hiding- 
places they were not in safety. . . . Go then, 
Christians," exclaims the pious traveller in bringing 
his recital to an end ; "go and raise your marble 
palaces to the clouds ; dwell in sumptuous mansion s 
resplendent with purple and gold ; — as for me, I 
prefer to remain in these humble hiding-places, in 
these dark crypts with the holy Martyrs ; and there, 
in the hope of a glorious resurrection, to live con- 
cealed for a little while, hoping to enter with them 
hereafter into the heavenly tabernacles, and to obtain 
everlasting possession of a throne of glory. ' ' 

It would be too tedious to follow in detail, 
throughout all the centuries which have elapsed since 
the earliest ages of the Church, the application of 
the divine plan which was laid down at its very 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 89 

foundation. In all places and times we shall still 
behold the realization of the oracle — Christum 
oportuit ftati. It was needful that Christ should 
suffer for the salvation of men. It is needful that 
His members should suffer also, to co-operate with 
Him in the work of salvation. What indeed do we 
find in those apostolic men of all ages who received 
from God the mission to carry the Gospel light to 
all the nations of the world, and to bestow upon 
them the blessings of our holy religion ? Invariably, 
that they appeared to the astonished peoples in the 
character of victims, quite as fully as in the charac- 
ter of Apostles and Ministers of Jesus Christ. 

To quote only a few instances, let us recall the 
Acts of St. Ignatius of Antioch, that ardent apostle 
and generous Martyr of Jesus Christ, who sealed the 
truths which he preached with his blood. He indeed 
bore testimony to Jesus Christ with his words and 
with the sacrifice of his life. Burning with love for 
that dear Master, he met death joyfully for His sake ; 
and calling himself the wheat of Jesus Christ, he 
went to be ground between the teeth of the lions in 
the amphitheatre. St. Irenseus, the Apostle of the 
Gauls, poured forth his blood to fertilize the land 
which he had previously watered with the sweat of 
his hjow ; and at Lyons, the place where he used to 
offer the Holy Sacrifice, is still venerated in remem- 
brance of that saintly Bishop who himself became a 
sacrifice and gave his life for his sheep. St. Athana- 



90 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

sius also, that intrepid defender of the Divinity of 
Jesus Christ, was assailed by the adherents of the 
Arian heresy with such bitter hatred and relentless 
persecution, that, to quote the words of an historian, 
it appeared as if the whole universe had taken part 
against him. St. John Chrysostom, again, had to 
pay dearly for the courage and matchless eloquence 
with which he stigmatized and condemned the vices 
of the court of Constantinople, and the cupidity of 
the Empress Eudoxia. Driven into exile, and com- 
pelled to endure incredible hardships, this Saint, 
honored with the double apostleship of suffering and 
of the Gospel of truth, endured extraordinary trials, 
and even in exile converted many souls to the faith 
of Jesus Christ. 

In times more nearly approaching our own, 
St. Bernard, the glory of France, the messenger of 
Providence, who exerted such a beneficial and sanc- 
tifying influence over his own times, who was 
employed by God to perform such magnificent 
works in His Church, was as distinguished in the 
apostleship of suffering as he was in his tireless 
labors in our Lord's vineyard. His biographers 
speak of him as being always ill, and almost always 
seeming at the point of death. Corpus tenue et pene 
mortuum. St. Francis of Assisi, the "poor man of 
Jesus Christ," to whom the Church owes a countless 
host of Saints and apostles, was also a living image 
of Jesus crucified, by a rare and wondrous grace 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 91 

receiving in his own body the impression of the 
Sacred Wounds of our Redeemer. St. Francis 
Xavier — an apostolic man if ever one deserved that 
title, who for his zeal and labors was well sur- 
named the St. Paul of modern times — what did he 
not undergo in the course of his missions in India 
and Japan ? For the holy Founder of his Order, 
St. Ignatius, who was also his spiritual father in 
Jesus Christ, how great must have been his sufferings 
whilst inaugurating a work which was to give to the 
Church this unwearied preacher and saintly mission- 
ary, and so many others who have succeeded him ! 
And, finally, to recall the illustrious name of a woman 
who was and will ever remain one of the brightest 
lights of the Church, as well as of Catholic Spain, 
who does not know the tribuj^tions which the glori- 
ous Virgin of Avila, the seraphic Teresa of Jesus, 
was strengthened to endure in the course of her 
glorious career? — a career which enriched the 
Church with so many monasteries, where the prayers 
and sacrifice of hundreds of chosen souls, holy and 
pure victims, apostles of suffering, ascend continu- 
ally to Heaven, as a holocaust of sweet odor, to 
appease the wrath of God, provoked by the wicked- 
ness of men. 

But not to enlarge further upon this part of our 
subject, we will pass over the innumerable multitude 
of Saints who, throughout the course of centuries, 
have borne the blood-stained banner of the Apostle- 



92 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

ship of Suffering. These are the crowds of holy 
Bishops, saintly Priests, fervent Religious and Nuns, 
and zealous Missionaries who have never ceased to 
preach the Gospel of Christ, not by their words 
only, but also by their sufferings, and often by their 
blood, with which they have freely watered that por- 
tion of the vineyard of the Lord of Hosts in which 
their Master has summoned them to labor. If time 
and space permitted us to question them all in turn, 
and to ask them by what secret of divine grace they 
were enabled to perform such great deeds, and bring 
forth such worthy fruits in the souls of men, they 
would doubtless reply with one voice, In dolore 
paries. " In sorrow we have begotten these souls to 
Jesus Christ." Our labors united to those of our 
Divine Head, our sufferings and privations joined to 
His sufferings and death, have, by the aid of divine 
grace, opened to all these souls the way of salvation. 
Thus is perpetuated and realized from age to age, in 
the propagation of the Catholic religion, that sacred 
plan with which it was inaugurated : Christum opor- 
tuit pati. It was necessary that Christ should suffer ; 
and it is needful also that all those who desire to 
labor efficaciously in propagating His saving work, 
should suffer with Him, even as He has suffered. 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 93 



CHAPTER XL 

The preceding Doctrine confirmed by the explanation of the 

Text of St. Paul, " I fill up those things that 

are wanting of the Sufferings of 

Christ in my flesh." 

Colossians, i 24. 

"It must needs be that Christ should suffer." 
. And only on the condition of suffering 
with Him here, can we hope to be glorified with 
Him hereafter. The great Apostle St. Paul, who 
pronounced this oracle of God, has presented us 
with its most striking application in his own person 
and in his own life ; the true Apostle of Jesus Christ, 
he is also a true victim with Him. As he gloried in 
preaching Jesus Christ crucified, so did he also glory 
in bearing about in his body the marks of the Lord 
Jesus. He goes so far as to say that he "fills up in 
his own flesh those things which were wanting of the 
sufferings of Christ. ' ' Adimpleo ea qua desunt pas- 
sioniun Christi in came mea. And he adds further, 
"For His mystical dody, which is the Church " (Col- 
ossians, i. 24). Pro corpore ejus quod est Ecclesia. 
Would it be possible for him to have defined the 
Apostleship of Suffering in fewer words, or in a more 
explicit manner? or could he declare more plainly 
that by means of suffering the Christian may labor 



94 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

for the salvation of souls, and exercise an apostleship 
most efficacious in the order of our eternal salvation ? 

For the consolation, no less than for the instruc- 
tion of all suffering Christians, we will endeavor to 
place these wonderful words of St. Paul in their full- 
est and clearest light and we will commence by the 
explanation of the first part of the text, "I fill up in 
my flesh those things that are wanting of the sufferings 
of Christ.^ Adimpleo ea quce desunt passionum 
Christi in came mea. The meaning of these words 
is as follows : By suffering in my own flesh, I fill up 
those things which were wanting in the sufferings 
which Jesus Christ endured in His flesh. What ! 
you may exclaim, could anything be wanting in the 
Passion of the Son of God ? Were then His suffer- 
ings insufficient, and is the Redemption which was 
the fruit of those sufferings insufficient also ? No. 

The Passion of the Son of God was all-sufficient ; 
and there is nothing wanting to the greatness or the 
extent of its value. It was of a price so infinite, 
that by His Death and Passion our Blessed Redeemer 
might have ransomed, not only one, but, if neces- 
sary, a thousand worlds. 

And yet there was, and still is, something want- 
ing in the Passion of our Blessed Saviour as regards 
ourselves. What then is wanting ? It is the com- 
munication and participation of His sufferings and 
merits. It was needful, in fact, that Christ should 
suffer, not in Himself alone, but also in His mem- 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 95 

bers, — that is to say, in His Apostles and in the rest 
of the faithful ; and that by that Passion, and by 
those sufferings, the Church, which is His Body, 
should be propagated and completed. 

Such is the eternal decree which has gone forth. 
God has determined that His Son should suffer, not 
in Himself alone, but also in His Body and His 
Members ; that is to say, in the Church and in the 
faithful, so that by their sufferings, the work of our 
Blessed Lord should be completed. That is, every 
one of His faithful servants entering into the par- 
ticipation of the sufferings and Death of Jesus Christ 
enters into the participation of Jesus Christ Himself, 
contracting a perfect resemblance to Him, and a 
most intimate union with Him — the union of the 
members with their Head, and of the Head with its 
members. And in this sense it is correct to say that 
by means of suffering Jesus Christ is consummated 
in His members. St. Paul was therefore fully 
justified in exclaiming, "I fill up in my flesh those 
things that are wanting of the sufferings of Christ. ' ' 
Adimpleo ea quoz desunt passionum Christi in came 
mea. 

O suffering Christian brethren ! what boundless 
consolation is contained for you in these words ! 
From all eternity, and by the same decree by which 
He determined that Jesus, His Beloved Son, should 
become a Man of Sorrows, God the Father decreed 
also that all His members should suffer, and that 



96 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

consequently you should suffer with Him. Oh, 
supereminent dignity ! Oh, priceless value of suffer- 
ing, considered in Jesus our Head, and in the eternal 
decree which communicates to it a distinction so 
sublime, and a fruitfulness so wonderful for our own 
salvation, and the salvation of the human race. 

Hear the testimony of St. Augustine to this 
important doctrine. It is his explanation of that 
text of St. Paul which has been the subject of our 
consideration. " Jesus Christ," he remarks, " suf- 
fered everything that He was appointed to suffer. 
When He was hanging upon the Cross, He said 
'It is consummated? signifying, 'The measure of My 
sufferings is full. All that was written of Me is now 
accomplished.' The sufferings of Jesus are then 
complete? Yes; but only in the Head. The suffer- 
ings of Jesus are still to be endured in His Body, in 
His Members. You are, in truth, the body and the 
members of Jesus Christ. St. Paul was one of His 
members, and therefore he says : 1 1 fill up those things 
that are wanting of the sufferings of Christ in my 
flesh: "* 

After the preceding explanation, it is easy to 
make the application of this text to the subject under 
consideration. The learned commentator who has 
assisted us in discovering the true sense of the first 
part of this sacred oracle, will also guide us to a 
correct explanation of the second. 

* St. Augustine, in Psalm lxxxvi. 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 97 

St. Paul then says that he fills up in his flesh 
those things that are wanting in the sufferings of his 
Master. Adimpleo ea qucR desunt passionum Christi 
in came mea. And he adds further, ''For His Body, 
which is the Church.'' ' Pro corpore ejus quod est Ecc'le- 
sia. To explain these last words, there is indeed 
something wanting in the sufferings of the Son of 
God for working the conversion of the infidels to 
the faith, and causing them to participate in the 
Passion of the Saviour. Now this is precisely the 
work which is completed and fully accomplished by 
the iVpostles, in suffering all that they have to endure 
in preaching the Gospel, in order to propagate the 
Church of Jesus Christ ; and this is one meaning of 
the text of St. Paul. The second is as follows: 
There were also things wanting in the sufferings of 
Jesus Christ, in order to apply more fully the benefit 
of His sufferings and satisfactions to the faithful who 
were already converted. 

Indeed, by each work of satisfaction which is 
performed by one of the faithful, he applies to him- 
self the satisfaction of the Redeemer, and in this 
manner satisfies for the temporal penalty due to his 
sins. But he may also apply for the benefit of others 
those same sufferings and satisfactions united to those 
of our Divine Saviour. This is one of the condi- 
tions of the Communion of Saints, that communion 
of good works which exists in the Church. And it 
is in this sense also that St. Paul accomplished for 



98 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

the Church those things which were wanting in the 
sufferings of Christ. He applied the superfluity of 
his own sufferings and satisfactions to the benefit of 
the Church, in order that by her means the satisfac- 
tion made by Jesus Christ might be applied to the 
faithful members of the Church, and they might 
thereby satisfy for their own sins ; that is to say, that 
they might make satisfaction for the temporal pun- 
ishment which still remains to them to undergo, after 
they have obtained the pardon of their sins. 

We may observe, with several eminent theo- 
logians, especially Bellarmine, that these words of 
St. Paul may also be understood as referring to the 
treasure of indulgences which is in the keeping of 
the Church ; for it is the will of God that this 
treasure should be composed, not only of the merits 
and satisfactions of our Blessed Lord, but also of 
those gained by the Apostles and all the Saints. 
By this means it was the intention of God to give 
honor at the same time to His Son and to the Saints, 
by causing these latter to enter into fellowship with 
the Son in the satisfaction made by Him for all 
mankind. A king confers honor upon his generals 
by putting them at the head of his provinces, or by 
giving them a share in the government of his king- 
dom. Thus God, the great First Cause, honors His 
creatures, the second causes of things, by condescend- 
ing to associate them with Himself in His work. 
In the second place, God proposed by this means to 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 99 

establish a perfect communication of benefits between 
all the members of the Church, — that is to say, 
between us and the Saints, a communication which 
ought to exist between ( iiildren of the same family. 
In this manner the Saints really fill up for the Church 
that which was wanting in the treasure of which we 
have spoken, and they consequently fill up those 
things which were wanting in the sufferings of Christ ; 
because, without these sufferings of the Saints, those 
which were endured by our Blessed Lord would not 
have filled up that treasure in the way in which God 
willed it to be filled up, — that is, by the sufferings 
and satisfactions of Jesus and the Saints combined. 

Let us- now sum up this explanation, so encour- 
aging to the suffering Christian. The treasure 
which it here spoken of is assuredly complete on the 
side of the merits of our Lord Jesus Christ ; but it "is 
zVzcomplete with respect to the merits of the Saints ; 
and it is this deficiency that St. Paul refers to when 
he says of himself, — and by implication of the rest 
of the faithful, — that he supplies it, fills it up, by his 
sufferings. 

Such, according to the Commentators, is the 
proper meaning of this text of the great Apostle : 
"I fill up in my flesh those -things that are wanting of 
the sufferings of Christ, for His Body, which is the 
Church. ' ' 

Let those who are subjected to affliction and 
suffering, whether of mind or body, ever remember 

L.oFC. 



100 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

this consoling explanation. Especially let them lay 
to heart the still more consoling conclusion which 
follows from it, namely, that our sufferings, united 
to those of Jesus, our Divine Head, are endued with 
a divine efficacy and power — not only for ourselves — 
but also for others, for whom we may by this means 
obtain the grace of conversion if they be sinners, 
and after their conversion the grace to make satisfac- 
tion for their sins and to sanctify themselves more 
and more. Who, then, can fail to esteem suffering, 
estimated at such a price as this ? And who would 
not willingly consent to suffer for mankind in union 
with Jesus Christ ? 

St. Ambrose and St. John Chrysostom tell us 
that, as Jesus and the Church form mystically but 
one Body and one life, so the passion of Jesus and 
the passion of the Church — that is, of the Apostles, 
Martyrs, and of the Faithful in general — form one 
passion. 

It could not, in fact, be otherwise with regard 
to the sufferings of the Head and of the Body — that 
is, of the Members ; for the Head and the Members 
suffer together with one and the same suffering and 
agony ; and, as we have before repeated many times, 
Jesus Christ is the Head, and the Apostles and 
Faithful are the Members. This is the reason why 
our Lord, in addressing St. Paul, who was tben a 
persecutor of the infant Church, does not say to 
him, "Why persecutest thou the Church?" but 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 101 

"Why persecutest thou Me?" For, as Jesus Christ 
communicates His grace and patience to His Apos- 
tles and to the Faithful in general, so does He also 
communicate to them His sufferings ; and as when 
one member suffers, all the members, but especially 
the Head, suffer with it, so too, whenever the Faith- 
ful suffer, Jesus suffers — has compassion — with them. 
St. Augustine confirms this doctrine when he says, 
"The sufferings of Jesus Christ and of Christians 
are common to both, and belong both to Jesus 
Christ and to the Church." 



102 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 



CHAPTER XII. 

Essential Conditions of the Deification of our Sufferings ; that 

is to say : How the Union of Our Sufferings with 

Jesus Christ is to be wrought out, in order 

that they may become divine and 

efficacious for ourselves 

and others. 

Before proceeding any further, in order to 
understand the depth of gratitude to God with 
which our souls should be filled for His great con- 
descension in raising our sufferings to a divine 
dignity, let us remember that the first and radical 
cause of suffering is sin. This we are told by St. 
Paul himself: "For the images of sin is death.'*' 
Stipe?idia eniin peccati mors (Romans, vi.). Now in 
this sentence we must understand death to mean not 
only that final crisis which separates and rends 
asunder soul and body, but likewise all those 
sufferings which directly or indirectly herald that 
final separation. The daily infirmities incident to 
our nature, that labor of dissolution which pain 
commences in us, what is all this, inquires St. 
Gregory, but a kind of death long drawn-out ? 
Quaedam prolixiias mortis. Original sin— that is to 
say, the sin which we contract through our birth 
from a guilty father — our personal infidelities, these 
form the principal cause of the sorrows which we 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 103 

all have to endure. Of its own nature, and making 
no reference to redemption, suffering is, and can be, 
nothing but a pnnishment, a chastisement inflicted 
upon guilty men. See, then, how deeply we are 
indebted to the infinite mercy of God — how many 
acts of thanksgiving we owe Him for having found 
among the inexhaustible treasures of His mercy the 
means of converting into a special favor that thing 
which, through its own nature, was destined to be 
our perpetual torment and misery. This means is 
made known to us by St. Paul when he says : 
"Behold the goodness and loving kindness of God our 
Saviour have appeared amongst us" (Titus, iii. 4). 

When the sun arises after a long and gloomy 
night, it drives away the shades of darkness, and 
enlightens the whole earth with its cheering rays. 
Thus, after the long night of four thousand years 
which preceded His coming, that Divine Star 
appeared to which the Apostle refers, and the world 
was flooded by the rays of its heavenly light, and 
warmed by its vivifying heat. A marvellous trans- 
formation was effected in human nature, and also in 
the sufferings of humanity which is become Christian 
in Jesus Christ. Whereas by nature we were " chil- 
dren of wrath," as St. Paul expresses it, we have 
become " sons of God" by adoption ; and whereas 
our sufferings were formerly the simple instruments 
of God's righteous justice, they are now become 
instruments of mercy, and an inexhaustible source of 



104 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

blessings. Eternal praise and glory be therefore 
rendered to Jesus Christ, to Whose infinite goodness 
we owe this amazing benefit. But in proportion to 
the great price and value of this blessing, should be 
our anxiety to discover how we may best profit by 
it, and apply it most fully to ourselves. This we 
now propose to explain by unfolding the meaning of 
those words of our Lord Jesus Christ to His dis- 
ciples : "I am the Vine ; you are the branches.'''' 

The whole practical economy of the deification 
of our nature, and consequently of our actions and 
sufferings also, is to be found in these two short but 
most expressive sentences : Ego sum vitis, vos palm- 
it es. "I am the Vine ; you are the branches" The 
Vine is Jesus Christ ; the branches are each one of 
us, disciples and members of Jesus Christ. Do we 
desire that our sufferings should be raised to a divine 
dignity, be meritorious to ourselves, and salutary for 
others ? There is one only means of effecting this, 
one condition to fulfil : it is to become united as 
living branches to Jesus, the True Vine. On this 
condition we shall receive the divine sap, the divine 
life ; that is to say, the communication of the prec- 
ious Blood of Jesus Christ, which is as the vital fluid 
of the tree of life; and with this Blood the divine 
life of Jesus Christ will abide in us. 

We will make some further comment upon this 
text, which contains in a few words the whole range 
of the practical doctrine of the divine and super- 
natural life of a Christian. 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 105 

Why does our Lord propose to His disciples, 
and to each one of us in their persons, this most 
affecting comparison ? It is in order to teach us 
that we must remain steadfast in His faith and love, 
and never wander from Him. Thus alone can we 
bring forth fruit, both for ourselves and others. He 
has various other reasons for comparing Himself to a 
vine. The first of these reasons is that when He 
made use of this comparison, He had just instituted 
the Most Holy Eucharist, in which He had given 
His own Blood to His Apostles under the species of 
wine, and had left it to all the faithful until the end 
of the world — that all might drink of it in their 
turn, and thus by the virtue of that mystic Wine 
might become inflamed with the love of their Divine 
Master, and might be enabled courageously to over- 
come all temptations. The second reason is that 
the Son of God was on the point of going forth to 
the Cross and to death, which are so perfectly repre- 
sented under the figure of the vine and its grapes. 
Just as when the grape is crushed an exquisite and 
precious wine wells forth, so from this Lamb of God, 
pressed in the wine-press of the Cross, that precious 
Blood poured forth which redeemed the world ; and 
for this reason He has the right to call Himself the 
True Vine, Ego sum vitis vera. For as the vine 
produces branches and fruit, thus does the Lord 
Jesus Christ produce by His grace, as by some divine 
sap, true virtues and faithful men. 



106 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

Yes, Jesus Christ is the True Vine, as He is the 
True Light, Ego sum lux vera : as He is the True 
Life, Ego sum vita : as He is the True Bread from 
Heaven, Partem de ccelo ventm. He is the chosen 
Vine of which the Prophet Isaias speaks as spreading 
the boughs of faith in all lands, producing vigorous 
branches and exquisite clusters ; that is to say, the 
glorious troop of Martyrs, Virgins, Confessors, and 
of all Saints. In fact, after saying, "I am the Vine" 
He adds, and " ye are the branches." But observe 
the conditions upon which He communicates the 
blessing of fruitfulness to the branches ; this condi- 
tion is that they remain united with Him: "Jf any 
man abide in Me, and My words abide in him, the 
same bringeth forth much fruit. ' ' The meaning of 
this is : He that abideth in Me in the same way as I 
abide in him (not by faith alone, but by faith vivified 
by charity, so that I in My turn may love him and 
may fill him with My Spirit), the same shall bring 
forth much fruit of good works and of merits; and 
so acquire a continual increase of grace and glory. 
For, continues our good Teacher, "Without Me ye 
can do nothing'''' — that is to say, nothing which mer- 
its eternal and divine life : Sine me nihil potestis 
facere. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, 
except it abide in the vine, you cannot bear fruit 
unless you remain in Me : Sic et vos, nisi in me man- 
seritis. And as the branch draws from the vine to 
which it is united, its life and the sap which enables 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 107 

it to produce fruit, so do you derive from Me the 
life of grace to produce those good works which 
merit eternal life. 

From this doctrine it evidently results that it is 
not from himself, nor from his own natural strength, 
nor from the external help of any man whatsoever, 
but from the grace imparted to his soul by Jesus 
Christ, that man derives strength to bring forth good 
and supernatural works, and consequently that he 
obtains strength to merit an augmentation of grace 
and glory. 'For this reason ; that the branch has 
nothing of itself, but draws all its sap and fertility, 
all its productive virtue from the vine. St. Cyril, 
explaining the intimacy of the union which exists 
between this heavenly Vine and its branches, — that 
is to say, between Jesus Christ and the Christians 
who are His members, — says that we become holy 
and united to our Lord Jesus Christ in two ways : 
spiritually, by faith, hope, and charity ; and corpor- 
ally, in the sense that the holy humanity of Jesus 
Christ is that Vine of which we are the branches, 
because of the identity of human nature ; and that 
this union is chiefly effected by the Most Holy 
Eucharist, by which we are united to the Incarnate 
Son of God, not only as the branch is united to the 
vine, but as a piece of melted wax is united and 
made one with another piece of melted wax. 

From all these considerations it is easy to con- 
clude that the sole essential and indispensable con- 



108 THE APQSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

dition on which alone we can labor and suffer in a 
divine and supernatural manner — and therefore in a 
manner which is efficacious for our own salvation 
and for that of others — is to be united to Jesus 
Christ as the branch is united to the vine; or, in 
other words, to be in a state of sanctifying grace 
which unites the Christian to his Divine Head, not 
alone by faith and hope, but also by charity. If this 
condition be wanting, the actions and sufferings of a 
Christian would be like the worthless fruits which 
fall from a dry and withered branch. For how 
would you expect a branch through which the life- 
giving sap no longer flows, to produce fruits of life, 
especially of divine life? Our Lord Himself has 
said this, as we have just seen ; and He gives addi- 
tional confirmation to this teaching in the same 
passage of the Gospels where He says : "If a man 
abideth not in Me (which must be understood of 
charity accompanying faith), he shall be cast out as 
a barren and useless branch, and shall wither ; and 
they shall gather him up, and cast him into the fire, 
and he shall be burned. ' ' The signification of which 
is as follows : Just as the withered branch is cut off 
from the vine, thrown out of the vineyard, then 
bound up in bundles and cast into the fire ; even so 
the man who abideth not in Me by faith and charity, 
shall be cast out after death; that is, he shall be 
separated from the Church and from the company of 
the faithful, and cut off from the number of the 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 109 

members of Jesus Christ ; and in that state he will 
become dried up, deprived of the life-giving sap of 
divine grace, be taken possession of by the devils, 
bound up in a bundle with the reprobates, and then 
be cast into the fire of hell, where he will burn 
eternally. 

But just as the state of the branch cut off from 
the Vine and withered is deplorable, so is the posi- 
tion of the branch which is closely united to the 
Vine enviable and glorious. Because the Blessed 
Virgin Mary was most intimately united to Jesus 
Christ, the True Vine, she received such a great 
abundance of grace, and of the divine life, that she 
has been empowered to distribute to the end of time 
the treasures of that grace to all the descendants of 
Adam. This is the Divine Branch (or rather second 
Vine) which issued from the first, and by whose 
means all the scattered branches have their union 
with the divine trunk or stem, which is the Sacred 
Humanity of her beloved Son. It is to this intimate 
union of Mary with Jesus that so many sinners are 
indebted for their conversion, so many just men for 
their perseverance, so many of the elect for their 
eternal happiness. It is because they were thus 
closely united to Jesus, the True Vine, that the 
Apostles were filled with the Holy Ghost, and con- 
sequently with the life of God ; and therefore it was 
that ihey conquered so many kingdoms to Jesus 
Christ, spreading the divine life, and with it the 



110 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

kingdom of God and of His Divine Son, throughout 
so many souls. Their sufferings, rendered divine by 
that sacred union, were no less efficacious than their 
preaching in bringing the people of the world out of 
the darkness of error and sin, into the glorious light 
of evangelical truth. And therefore did they rejoice 
to suffer shame and contempt for the holy Name of 
Jesus, Whose sacred doctrine they preached. Ibant 
gaudentes, quoniam digni habiti sunt pro nomine Jesu 
contumeliam pati. And the one amongst them all 
who had the most to suffer for that holy Name, the 
great Apostle St. Paul, takes pleasure in the enu- 
meration of his sufferings, which brought forth such 
rich fruit for the salvation of the nations to whom 
he was sent. He says to the Galatians, his spiritual 
children in Jesus Christ : Filioli met, quos iterum 
parturio donee formetur Christus in vobis : "My little 
children, of whom I am in labor again until Christ be 
formed i?i you" 1,1 (Galatians, iv. 19). And he also 
reveals to them the secret of this mysterious travail, 
of this Apostolic fruitfulness, when he declares 
further : Mihi autetn absit gloriari, nisi in cruce 
Domini nostri Jesu Christi. Ego enwi stigmata 
Domini Jesu in corpore meo porto. " God forbid that 
I should glory, save in the Cross of our Lord Jesus 
Christ, by Whom the world is crucified to me, and I 
unto the world ; for I bear in my body the marks of 
the Lord Jesus (Galatians, vi. 14-17). 

To be united to Jesus Christ by charity, as the 



THE AP0STLESH1P OF SUFFERING 111 

branch is joined to the vine, and to be possessed of 
that purity of intention which gives to all our actions 
a supernatural aim — this is the secret by which all 
our sufferings may be raised to a divine dignity ; 
such is the indispensable condition of that divine 
fruitfulness by which we shall bring forth fruit both 
for our own benefit and that of others ; this alone it 
is that renders them meritorious to ourselves, and 
efficacious to promote the salvation of our neighbor. 
Let us then unite ourselves to the dispositions of 
Jesus suffering, more especially to His patience, 
humility, and ardent charity toward God and man. 
Let us unite ourselves to the intention of Jesus suffer- 
ing, — that is, to the object which He proposed to 
Himself in His sufferings, namely, the glory of God 
the Father, and the salvation of all mankind. This 
has been the aim of all the Saints, and by this means 
they became true apostles to the glory of God and of 
the salvation of their brethren — through their suffer- 
ings. And as the Apostleship of Suffering cannot be 
exercised with fruit except upon this condition, let 
us embrace it courageously, and conclude that the 
more closely we are united by love and sorrow to the 
Passion of Jesus, the more certainly do we become 
His apostles through suffering and the Cross. 



112 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

Practical Conclusions to be drawn from the preceding Chapter, 

As Jesus Christ is the Vine, and we are the 
branches, — since He is our head, and we are His 
members, — if we desire to participate in His divine 
life so that it may unfold itself supernaturally in us r 
even in our smallest actions and our slightest suffer- 
ings, we must remain united to Jesus Christ by 
charity, and associate ourselves with all His disposi- 
tions and intentions. Of all the principles of the 
spiritual life, this is at once the most practical and 
the most fruitful. It may even be said that it con- 
tains in itself all the others ; for it is, in fact, the 
practical application of our incorporation into Jesus 
Christ, and of its development in us of the fulness 
of Christ Himself, according to St. Paul : In inen- 
surarn cetatis plenitudinis Christi (Ephesians, iv. 13). 
The entire economy of our elevation to a state which 
is supernatural and divine, consists in the ever- 
increasing formation of Jesus Christ in us, until it 
attains that fulness or plenitude of which the Apostle 
speaks in the same passage of his Epistle to the 
Ephesians. Developing the admirable doctrine of 
the unity of the members of Jesus Christ amongst 
themselves, he demonstrates at the same time that 
the principle and the perfection of that unity resides 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 113 

in Jesus Christ. He then proceeds to draw practical 
conclusions which are perfectly appropriate to our 
purpose. These are the words of the Apostle : 
"/ therefore, a prisoner in the Lord, beseech you to 
walk worthy of the vocation to which you are called. 
With all humility and mildness, with patience, sup- 
porting one another in charity, careful to preserve the 
unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace ; one body and 
one spirit, as you are called in one hope of your call- 
ing ; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and 
Father of all, Who is above all, and through all, and 
in us all. But to every one of us is given grace, accord- 
ing to the measure of the gift of Christ. And He gave 
some apostles, a?id some prophets, and other some evan- 
gelists, and other some pastors and doctors, for the per- 
fecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for 
the edifying of the body of Christ, until we all meet in 
the unity of faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of 
God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the age 
of the fulness of Christ'''' (Ephesians, iv. 1-13). 

"Now, if you desire to attain this measure,'''' 
writes St. Paul again, "be renewed in the spirit of 
your mind'''' — that is to say, be renewed by the life- 
giving virtue of the grace which is communicated to 
your soul, the regenerating, sanctifying grace of the 
Holy Spirit, " and put on the new man, who, accord- 
ing to God, is created injustice of holiness and truth." 
That is to say, put on Jesus Christ, Who is the new 
Adam. " Wherefore putting away lying, speak ye the 



114 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

truth every man with his neighbor ; for we are mem- 
bers one of another." "Give not place to the devil, 
and grieve not the Holy Spirit of God. Be ye kind 
one to another, merciful, forgiving one another, even as 
God for Christ' s sake hath forgiven you." 

We see that the great Apostle is here teaching 
us what is needful to be understood respecting the 
practical consequences which flow from our incor- 
poration with Jesus Christ : that is, by the union of 
our life, actions, and sufferings, to His life, His 
actions, and His sufferings. The imitation of the 
virtues of our Divine Head, and particularly of His 
humility and charity, is the most efficacious means 
that can possibly be employed to cause this union to 
bring forth fruit, and to make our sufferings profita- 
ble to ourselves and to our brethren. 

Let us then draw from all that has been said, 
the following practical conclusion. Of the three 
ways of suffering which can be met with, and which 
in fact are met with, amongst Christians, there is but 
one worthy of the true disciples of Jesus Christ ; one 
only which is meritorious and deserving of Heaven ; 
one only which is capable of contributing to the 
salvation of souls and of attaining the true virtue of 
an apostleship. Of these three ways of suffering we 
may say, the first is infernal ; the second is purely 
terrestrial ; and the third is both celestial and terres- 
trial at the same time. 

To explain ourselves more fully, we separate 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 115 

Christians who suffer into three classes. The first is 
that of bad Christians, for whom suffering is an 
occasion of blasphemy and of murmuring against 
the paternal hand of God which is inflicting the 
chastisement. These so-called Christians, unworthy 
of the name, suffer diabolically — that is to say, like 
the devils and the damned in hell, with murmurings, 
insubordination, hatred, and blasphemy. Endured 
in this manner, their sufferings are not only without 
merit, but they will become an occasion to them of 
incalculable evils if they continue in these sinful 
dispositions of mind. Not only are they useless to 
their fellow-Christians, but (on account of the close- 
ness of that bond of fellowship which exists between 
all the members of the Mystical Body of Christ) 
they are often positively hurtful to them ; for they 
are the cause that the hand of God presses more 
heavily upon the innocent, who suffer on account of 
their guilty brethren. Thus those Christians who 
come under this first category suffer without merit 
and without consolation ; more than this, their pains 
and tribulations increase in intensity in proportion 
as their murmurs increase, and this to such an extent 
that such persons have been often known to hurl 
themselves over the precipice of despair, and end 
their lives by suicide. A fearful remedy this for all 
their woes ! For by that final act of revolt against 
the authority of God, all their sufferings and miseries, 
which before were bounded by time, have now 



116 THE ^APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

become an irremediable and eternal heritage of woe. 
What can possibly be more sad, more hopelessly 
miserable than such a manner of enduring affliction, 
ending in so terrible a result? To suffer in this 
world, and by our impatient endurance of temporal 
suffering t© deserve eternal suffering in the world to 
come ! Can anything be more terrible ? Is not this 
incomparably the worst of all possible evils ? And 
should not the suffering Christian be willing to make 
every effort, to resign himself to any sacrifice, rather 
than run the risk of falling into this terrible condi- 
tion ? Suffering is imposed on man in the same way 
as his other duties. If we rebel against this inevit- 
able law, we rebel against God Himself who imposes 
it, and we consequently merit His vengeance. Thus 
we read in St. Augustine : Una eademque vis irruens 
bonos probat, purificat : malos vastat, damnat, exter- 
minat. The meaning of which is : The chastisement 
which is inflicted by God upon the just man tries 
and purines him ; but the same chastisement being 
inflicted upon the wicked, rouses him to rebellion, 
and he sinks into eternal ruin and damnation. 

Under the second class of Christians are 
included all those who suffer stoically and indiffer- 
ently, — that is, without any supernatural motive, and 
simply because it is not in their power to escape 
from suffering. When endured in this manner, suf- 
fering can never bring forth fruit unto salvation. 
For if it be entirely disconnected from all relation- 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 117 

ship with the supernatural order of things ; if it be 
exclusively confined to what is human and earthly, 
how can it ever attain to a supernatural result, or 
bring forth supernatural fruit, by contributing effica- 
ciously to the eternal salvation of the sufferer ? Suf- 
ferings are intolerable to the human mind, unless 
they can be reached by the consolations of Christian 
hope. Whatever may be the strength of character 
possessed by the sufferer, it is difficult, or we may 
almost say impossible, for him to support so heavy a 
burthen ; and it becomes simply insupportable if it 
receive any considerable increase. In every case, we 
must again repeat, suffering so borne is a pure loss to 
the sufferer, and a loss how irreparable and deplor- 
able ! When a person has been engaged for a long 
time upon some very laborious undertaking, and 
when having at length concluded his task, he derives 
from it no profit or advantage whatsoever, has he 
not then great excuse for complaint and disappoint- 
ment? Now with us, trial, labor, and sorrow, of 
one kind or another, occupy at least three parts of 
our life, and in many instances our whole life. If, 
then, the only result of this long series of grief and 
trouble is that we have endured it only because we 
could not help ourselves ; if the only fruit we obtain 
from all this suffering be the petty satisfaction of 
vaunting our stoical endurance ; then we have indeed 
good cause for deep humiliation and distress. This 
manner of suffering debases a man, because he views 



118 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

suffering only as a cruel necessity, to whose yoke he 
is forced most unwillingly to submit. And although 
by the strength and determination of his character 
he may frequently succeed in lightening its load for 
a time, yet is it still a heavy yoke, a shameful bond- 
age, or at least a bondage in which there is no true 
glory. Do you wish to sink into a state at once so 
humiliating, and so barren of any spiritual good ? 
No ; your faith and your dignity as a Christian 
revolt alike from a condition so degrading ; and, by 
the grace of God, you are fully determined to suffer 
amongst those who are included in that third class 
which it still remains for us to describe. 

This category includes those Christians, really 
worthy of the name, who consider suffering in the 
light in which every Christian ought always to view 
it, namely, as a means of expiating their sins, of 
attaining a closer resemblance to the great Example 
and Head of the predestinate, Jesus Christ, and thus 
of meriting eternal life. Under the salutary influ- 
ence of these supernatural thoughts and motives, 
such fervent Christians suffer supernaturally and 
divinely — with patience, with resignation, and with 
love, being closely united to Christ, their Crucified 
Head, and conforming themselves entirely to His 
intentions and dispositions. 

However great and tedious their sufferings may 
be, never will a word of complaint be heard from 
their lips ; and were you enabled to penetrate into 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 119 

their inmost heart, you would find there the noblest 
feelings of great souls, of hearts made like unto the 
Sacred Heart of our Lord : you would find resigna- 
tion in suffering — even love of suffering. And in many 
of these chosen souls you would meet with that heroic 
love which impelled St. Teresa to exclaim amidst 
her severest sufferings: "Lord Jesus, for Thy love 
let me suffer or die:" Pati, aut tnori ; that love 
which caused St. Mary Magdalen de Pazzi to cry 
out: "Lord Jesus, for Thy love I desire to suffer, 
and not to die :" Pati, non mori. Oh ! great souls, 
implore that God Who inflamed your generous hearts 
with these fervent impulses of love, to breathe the 
same ardent affections into our hearts, that we also 
may for the love of God prefer suffering to consola- 
tion, and that we may be strengthened to exclaim, 
with St. Francis Xavier, "" More suffering, O Lord ! 
give me yet more suffering!" Amplius, D online, 
amplius. 

But if it is not given us to suffer in this man- 
ner, which of all manners is assuredly the most sub- 
lime and the most divine, let us at least suffer with 
true Christian resignation, like the Lamb of God, 
Who opened not His mouth in complaint even when 
they were nailing Him to the Cross. To suffer thus 
is to suffer as a Christian in union with Jesus Christ, 
the Head of all Christians ; and if a loving zeal 
gives life and fruitfulness to our endurance, then 
indeed we suffer apostolically , and we become in good 
6* 



120 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

truth apostles through suffering. Then we convert 
sinners, we obtain the gift of perseverance for the 
just, — in a word we save souls. And if, by the aid 
of God's all-powerful grace, we are enabled to love 
suffering as St. Teresa, St. Magdalen de Pazzi, and 
St. Francis Xavier loved it, then we shall realize in 
a degree which is known to God alone, that Apostle- 
ship of Suffering to which the reader is invited by us 
with our most earnest powers of persuasion. 

In proportion to the number of those generous 
souls who in this unhappy age will freely offer them- 
selves to God as victims of sorrow and of love, in 
union with the one great Victim of love and sorrow, 
in proportion to the number of these willing victims 
will be the hope of the near and glorious triumph of 
our holy Mother the Church. Fiat, fat. The 
blood of the Martyrs is the seed of the Church; and 
the souls who voluntarily offer themselves to suffer 
for the glory of God, or the good of their fellow- 
creatures, are truly hidden Martyrs, as was St. Aloy- 
sius Gonzaga. Of him it is related that St. Mary 
Magdalen de Pazzi, being rapt in an ecstasy, and 
beholding the great joy and glory to which he was 
exalted in Heaven, exclaimed: "Yes, Aloysius, son 
of Ignatius, was indeed a Martyr, a Martyr of 
Charity." 

O adorable Jesus, inspire, we beseech Thee, the 
hearts of some amongst Thy young and faithful serv- 
ants with the earnest desire of offering themselves to 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 121 

Thee as victims of love and suffering for this unhappy 
generation. Thou alone knowest how precious is the 
sacrifice of the first-fruits of life, made at a season 
when so many think of nothing but the gratification 
of their own passions by sinning against Thee. The 
offering of first-fruits made under the Old Law was 
agreeable to God. Thou, Divine Lamb of God, 
didst know this ; and this was why, at Thy first 
entrance upon this mortal life, Thou didst offer 
Thyself to Thy Heavenly Father as a tender Victim, 
and why Thou didst from the earliest moment of 
Thine existence sacrifice Thyself as a perpetual holo- 
caust for His glory and for our salvation. Blessed 
for ever be Thy most Holy Name ! and may many 
young and noble hearts, inspired by Thy example, 
offer themselves with Thee to Thy Heavenly Father, 
as an offering of a sweet odor, for the salvation of 
their brethren in these unhappy times, when so many, 
perverted by the seductions and impiety of the age, 
go down to eternal ruin ! 



122 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

The Union of our Sufferings with those of Jesus Christ is 
wrought by the Holy Ghost. 

It is much to know that our sufferings can 
become divine — be deified — only in virtue of our 
union with Jesus Christ. It is yet more to desire 
and to work out this union. But where shall we 
obtain this supernatural knowledge of suffering, and 
whence shall we draw this desire — especially the 
effective desire of suffering in conformity with Jesus 
Christ? Assuredly, not the genius of man can here 
give him light nor his will inspire in him such a 
desire. 

Everything which belongs to the supernatural 
order is incalculably beyond the energies of human 
nature, however great we may think them to be. 
Between the one and the other there will always 
remain the distance of a measureless abyss — the dis- 
tance of infinity. If man, therefore, has come to 
have this knowledge and his soul has soared aloft to 
such desires, to such supernatural acts, we must con- 
clude that a new Sun has risen to his sight \ and 
that, along with the heavenly rays which enlighten 
his mind, it communicates to his will and heart its 
own divine energies and vitality. 

What is this wondrous Sun which rises to the 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 123 

souls of men, to enlighten them and give them life, 
to give them the divine science of suffering and the 
strength needed for the supernatural endurance of 
suffering ? 

It is the Holy Ghost. Without the Holy Ghost 
the understanding of man, in all that concerns the 
supernatural order, remains buried in the darkest 
night and the will, left powerless, remains inert and 
without life. This truth has inspired Bossuet with 
words that may be read in a discourse on the day of 
Pentecost. With his wonted eloquence he treats of 
the weakness of our nature and the need it has of 
the grace of the Holy Spirit, if it is to be secured 
against its own infirmities. 

" Only aspire toward Christian perfection — only 
follow Jesus Christ a little in the narrow way, and 
experience will soon make us to know our own weak- 
ness. Weary of the obstinate struggling of cupidity 
within us, we shall confess that all strength is want- 
ing to us unless upheld by the grace of God. After 
all, it is no merely human work to master this enemy 
which is within our own household, which is so 
undying in its persecution of us, which leaves us no 
moment of truce. Torn asunder within ourselves, 
we are consumed by our own struggles. The more we 
think to raise ourselves up by our natural strength, 
the weaker we become — as some poor dying man 
who no longer knows which way to turn. Could he 
but rise he imagines his pain would for a moment 



124 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

cease ; and in the effort, which he has not the 
strength to undergo, he loses the force still left him. 
He has managed to drag along his wearied limbs 
with pain and trouble, only to fall back like a stone, 
pulseless and motionless, weaker and more powerless 
than ever. Thus it is with our wills, unaided by 
divine grace." 

Therefore the help of the Holy Ghost is abso- 
lutely necessary, if we are ever to overcome the evil 
inclinations of our nature. But it is far more neces- 
sary in order to make us accept suffering with resig- 
nation and love in conformity with our crucified 
God, that is, to raise us as high above our nature as 
heaven is above the earth. 

Hitherto we have brought to mind, one after 
the other, the great victims of the human race. We 
have seen the Blood of the Man-God flowing from 
His open wounds — streams of the Divine mercy 
issuing forth from the height of Calvary. We have 
looked on the heroic Mother of Jesus — the second 
Victim of humanity — standing erect at the foot of 
the Cross of her Divine Son. There have passed 
before our eyes Apostles and Martyrs, voluntary 
victims, in long unbroken train through all the 
Christian centuries — a blood-red golden chain whose 
first link is fastened to the Cross on Calvary. All 
these have given their blood and their life; and, 
suffering and dying with their Divine Head, they 
have continued — through Him and with Him — to 
save the world. 



THE AP0STLESH1P OF SUFFERING. 125 

This is the sum of what has been said until now, 
and it has not yet passed from our memory. But 
what has not yet been said explicitly is that these 
Apostles and Martyrs, all these voluntary victims, 
owe it to the Holy Ghost that they have been lifted 
so high above themselves and have become the 
worthy perpetuators of the bloody Sacrifice of the 
Cross. 

The Holy Ghost is the eternal bond of love of 
the Father and the Son, possessing in Himself the 
infinite power of union. And it is the Holy Ghost 
that unites the members to the Head — the Church 
and each one of the faithful to Jesus Christ — to be 
made sharers in His divine life. He alone has the 
secret of that wondrous working by which, as the 
same Bossuet has said, "He flows down effectively 
into our souls." If we may so speak, He sets the 
Blood of Jesus Christ into circulation in our souls, 
in order that its virtue may be applied to them. He 
enlightens them with His own splendors, He enlivens 
them with His own breathings, He kindles in them 
His flames of love and gives them divine life by the 
ineffable communication which He makes to them of 
Himself and His own divine vitality. 

A great Bishop of our day* has spoken elo- 
quently of this presence of the Holy Ghost in the 
Church and of the mysterious influence which He 
exercises over the souls and hearts that are marked 

* Mgr. Berthand of Tulle, France. 



126 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

with the seal of Baptism. It was just after Pius IX. 
had defined the Christian faith in regard to the 
Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, 
Mother of God ; and the learned prelate was publish- 
ing to his flock the Apostolic definition of this 
dogma of our faith. 

" The Holy Ghost is in the Church — her infinite 
soul, at once mighty and sweet. His habitual pres- 
ence is doubtless made known by continued action : 
for the Church is always living, and receives there- 
fore without any interruption the divine inspirations. 
But at certain determined times, she is stirred by a 
special impulse. According to the burden of her 
duties and her needs, the Spirit lifts her above her- 
self. In the age of Martyrs, He fills her with stern 
energy. In the days when dogmas of the faith are 
to be defined and promulgated, He animates the 
multitude of the faithful to loving belief. Then a 
mighty and sweet impulse is given to this vast 
Church ; all her members are stirred and drawn on 
toward faith. The word of the dogma goes forth 
into those spiritual spaces where all awaits it in 
hope ; and it has not to make its way by violence. 
It is as the dew on flowers that wait impatiently. 
But the virtue of faith and mere habits of religion 
do not work all this without the special concurring 
aid of the Holy Ghost." 

The eloquent Bishop goes on to explain how. 
the faithful soul draws down upon itself a communi- 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 127 

cation of the Spirit of God that is more or less 
plentiful in proportion as its own co-operation is 
more or less generous. 

" Each soul receives these outpourings [of the 
life with which the Holy Ghost animates the body 
of the Church] inasmuch as it co-operates with them 
more or less generously. Sometimes there is more 
of this grace in some lowly soul than in the powerful 
ones of the Church. On this depends the inner 
beauty of the soul ; that is, God always gives those 
first beginnings which are indispensable, but at the 
same time He subjects Himself invariably to the law 
of recompensing fidelity with new gifts. In this 
order of things, grace is not measured by the laws 
of the general need ; it is distributed according to 
the worth of individual acts. It is this which should 
comfort and elate every member of the body of 
Christ. There are no harsh obstacles in his way. 
There is nothing to restrain him in his upward flight. 
The vast spaces of spiritual progress stretch free and 
wide before him. He may be perfect, if he only 
wills to be so ; for exhaustless grace is at his service. 
The little ones may here become great ; for of this 
divine life we may have what we will." 

Assuredly, this is consoling teaching. Let us 
take it to ourselves, to encourage us in having 
recourse to the Holy Spirit, most of all in our time 
of pain and trouble. This is the sum of what has 
been said : His grace is necessary in order that we 



128 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

may endure sufferings with merit for eternal life ; 
and this grace, which has been given ready to our 
hand with an all- divine liberality, will produce these 
fruits of eternal life in us in proportion to our own 
free co-operation. 

We know what the Apostles were before they 
received the Holy Ghost — ignorant, rude, timid 
men. But as soon as they had received the Spirit 
they became new men, filled with light and loftiness 
of soul and courage. A little before His Passion, 
in loving conversation our Lord had said to them : 
"J return to Him Who sent Me . . . and, 
because I have spoken this to you, sorrow hath filled 
your hearts. But I say to you the truth : it is expedi- 
ent for you that I go. For, if I go not, the Paraclete 
[the Spirit] will not come to you ; but, if I go, I will 
send Him to you. ' ' This was to say clearly — some- 
thing essential is still wanting to you, to be My true 
disciples. You do not yet understand the mystery 
of My humiliations and My sufferings. You dream 
only of a temporal kingdom for Myself and for you. 
In your courage there is heat of the imagination 
rather than strength of will ; for it is the spirit of 
this earth that still reigns in you. You have listened 
to My words, but you have not yet received My 
Spirit. "But the Paraclete — the Holy Spirit Whom 
the Father shall send in My name — He shall teach 
you all things and bring to your mind all things what- 
soever I have said unto you" (St. John, xiv. xv.). 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 129 

The holy and solemn day of Pentecost justified these 
words of the Divine Master by the wondrous change 
wrought in the Apostles and disciples who were 
assembled in the Cenacle together with Mary, the 
Blessed Mother of God. 

St. Augustine, in his explanation of this sub- 
lime doctrine, calls the Holy Ghost " the soul of the 
Church," and says : " See what the soul does in the 
body. It gives life and movement to all the limbs ; 
it sees with the eyes, speaks with the tongue, works 
with the hands, giving to each bodily organ its own 
proper activity. It is the same with the Holy Ghost 
in the Church of God and in the Saints who are the 
living members of the Church. In these He is the 
worker of miracles ; in those, the teacher of the 
doctrine of truth ; and in others again, the preserver 
of virginal purity, or of chaste modesty and shame. 
Each of the members of this mystic body has its own 
operation, but they all live one life in the bond 
of charity ; and this is the working of the Holy 
Ghost. This Divine Spirit is in the Church, which 
is the body of Jesus Christ, what the soul is in the 
body which it animates ; and that which the soul 
works in all the members of the same body, the 
Holy Ghost works in the whole Church." 

Do we then wish to be apostles of suffering ? 
It is first necessary that the Holy Ghost should 
become, as it were, the soul of our suffering. That 
is to say, His divine breath must give it life, He 



130 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

must unite it with the sufferings of Jesus Christ our 
Head, and by this union it must become a suffering 
that makes divine — the suffering of a living member 
of Jesus Christ, Son of God and Saviour of the 
world. Without this our suffering will be like that 
of an amputated limb, no longer receiving life from 
the body because it is separated from it. Of this 
St. Augustine speaks: "When some member of the 
human body is cut off, as the hand or a finger or 
foot, does the soul follow it? As long as it was with 
the body, it was alive ; but once cut off, it loses all 
life. Thus a man is a Catholic so long as he lives in 
the body of the Church ; when he is cut off from 
this body, he becomes a heretic. The Holy Ghost 
does not follow this amputated member. If then 
you would live with the life of the Holy Ghost, hold 
fast to charity, love the truth, desire unity, in order 
to come to the life of eternity." * 

The holy Doctor's aim, in these words, was to 
show the faithful that they must remain united with 
the mystic body of Jesus Christ, as members living 
with His life, if they would have the Holy Ghost 
present within them. For the Divine Spirit is the 
soul of this body, and the soul no longer gives life 
to members separated from the body which it ani- 
mates. But the holy Doctor also teaches, in express 
terms, that the Holy Ghost is in the Church not 
only as the source of unity and life for all her mem- 

* St. Augustine, Serm. II infer. II. Pentecost. 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 131 

bers, but likewise as the principle of all movement 
and activity. 

It is a great consolation for us to know that the 
Holy Ghost not only dwells in us as in His temples, 
but also has such union with us and such internal 
workings in us that St. Augustine does not hesitate 
to compare it to the action of the soul in the body 
which it animates. This is the direct meaning of 
his words ; and we may equally well conclude from 
them that our sufferings, unless they receive life and 
holiness from the grace of the Holy Ghost, are sim- 
ply sufferings that are dead and useless. But if the 
Spirit of God animates them with the life-giving 
breath of His charity, they become partakers of 
His divine virtue, they are elevated to the super- 
natural order, they become meritorious and deifying 
— they make divine. 

Let us then have recourse to the Holy Spirit, 
Who will not only make our sufferings divine, but 
will also grant us strength and comfort in order that 
we may endure them with holy joy. Is He not the 
Paraclete — the Comforter? How touchingly dees 
St. John Chrysostom recount His ineffable workings 
in our souls, and the numberless blessings that are 
the consequence. 

"The Holy Ghost is the spiritual perfection of 
our soul, the sun that shines to the eyes of our spirit, 
the bond of our union in Christ, the thrilling happi- 
ness of souls, the joy of hearts. He is the consola- 



132 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

tion of those who weep, and the rest of the spirit. 
By Him prophets are enlightened and kings sealed 
with the sacred anointing; by Him priests are 
ordained and the Church sanctified, altars raised and 
the holy chrism consecrated, waters made pure and 
demons cast out and the sick healed." 

Let us have recourse to the Holy Spirit. He 
will give us strength and courage in the midst of our 
combats and trials. "He it is," says St. Bernard, 
" that gives the strength of life ; and what by nature 
is impossible, becomes possible and easy by grace." 

Let us have recourse to the Holy Spirit. He 
will transform us even as He wrought the transform- 
ation of the Apostles. Of them St. Chryscstom 
speaks: "By the virtue of the Holy Ghost they 
became fishers of men, towers of strength and firm 
unshaken columns, leaders and teachers, pilots and 
pastors of the flock, athletes, strong in the fight,, 
and at the last crowned conquerors." 

Let us have recourse to the Holy Ghost. Then 
we shall know, by sweet experience, the truth of St. 
Peter Damian's words : "He whom the Spirit of the 
Divinity animates with His breath of life, shall 
trample under foot the things of earth and sigh for 
that which is heavenly and eternal." 

Yet let us be careful not to forget the loving 
warning of the great St. Basil: " In a mirror soiled 
and tarnished, the images reflected from objects can- 
not be discerned ; so no man can receive the light 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 133 

of the Holy Ghost unless he cast away sin and the 
affections of the flesh." 

Last of all, let us remember that when the Holy 
Ghost came down on the Apostles, the Blessed 
Mother of God, the Virgin Mary, was in the midst 
of them. In a way, it was by her means that they 
received the Divine Spirit. We too desire that the 
Holy Ghost should descend upon us with the fulness 
of His gifts. Most of all, we wish Him to pour out 
plentifully over our sufferings and pains and labors 
and tribulations that virtue which shall make them 
divine — meritorious for ourselves and salutary to 
others. We desire to be true apostles of suffering. 
Let us then turn to Mary, tenderest-hearted Mother. 
By the love of her well-beloved Son, may she obtain 
for us the friendship and favor, the graces and all 
the gifts, of the Holy Ghost, her Divine Spouse. 
In union with the holy dispositions of her Immacu- 
late Heart, we will beg her to pray along with us in 
the beseeching words of St. Augustine to the Holy 
Spirit : 

"Inspire me, that I may think ever of holy works ; 
compel me, that I may do them ; dj'aw me, that I may 
love Thee ; strengthen me, that I may hold Thee ; 
watch over me, lest I lose Thee" 

(END OF No. I OR FIRST PART.) 



econd t^cirt^ 



The Apostolic Uses of Suffering. 



CHAPTER I. 

The Apostleship of Suffering in Families and among the 

common Faithful. 

The excellence and mysterious fruitfulness of 
the Apostleship of Suffering have been plainly shown 
by the considerations unfolded in the course of the 
Chapters of the First Part. It now remains for us 
to point out in what this Apostleship of Suffering 
ought to be exercised. 

In what field are the Apostles of Suffering to 
exercise their holy mission ? 

The field of Catholic zeal is no other than the 
world itself; and the true Apostle of Suffering 
includes within the circle of his charitable inten- 
tions each soul who has been redeemed by the Blood 
of Jesus Christ. 

But whilst he suffers and endures for the good 
of men in general, he nevertheless directs the mys- 
terious operation of his sufferings more especially for 
the benefit of those who are brought under his 
notice by God's Holy Spirit. He enters, in fact, 
into the designs of God ; and the general harmony 
which prevails in all God's works makes it necessary 
that each workman in the vineyard should have his 
own portion assigned to him, in order that he may 
concentrate the fulness of his powers on his own 
particular field and thus act far more efficiently. 

137 



138 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

And in this manner does the Holy Spirit ordinarily- 
direct those souls to act who let themselves be led 
by His grace. 

As the Divine Spirit breathes His life-giving 
inspirations into the heart and soul of a Christian, 
he receives, as it were, a double impulse, and experi- 
ences a double operation. 

One is a universal impulse of love and zeal for 
all the members of Jesus Crucified, for all the 
children of the Church ; or, if his heart has become 
enlarged by frequent contact with the Sacred Heart 
of Jesus, this may even be extended to the whole ot 
the human race, and expend itself in earnest efforts 
to bring all back to the service and love of their 
Creator. 

But, besides this universal movement which 
causes the faithful soul to pour herself forth on the 
whole world — as if to help and save it by her 
prayers, her sufferings, and the holy ardor of her 
charity — there is another impulse, more special, 
more circumscribed, and restrained within narrower 
limits, which ordinarily points out to the Christian 
the peculiar designs of God in his behalf, and the 
special corner of the vineyard in which he is called 
upon to labor. This interior impulse is the attrac- 
tion of grace, the special direction of the Holy 
Spirit, drawing the soul to the appointed sphere of 
labor, guiding her in the labor and the culture of 
that portion of the Mystical Vineyard. 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 139 

Oh, how important it is that the directors of 
souls should fully comprehend a truth so practical in 
the economy of grace, that they may never thwart 
the Holy Spirit in that work of wondrous unity and 
multiplicity, whereby He effects the salvation and 
perfection of the souls of men, breathing " where He 
will and as He will" (St. John, iii. 8). It is 
through this want of proper comprehension of the 
working of grace in souls that so many directors 
place obstacles in God's way and delay in their 
progress toward perfection many generous hearts 
who would have reached it ; and, further, such 
directors thus impede the salvation of many sinners, 
for whom the grace of conversion might have been 
attained by the efforts of those souls when they had 
reached the height of sanctity. 

To apply this doctrine to our subject, we do 
not hesitate to affirm that God has appointed to 
everv Christian who suffers in unison with His 
beloved Son a peculiar field of labor, in which his 
sufferings will bear fruits of salvation for his own 
soul and the souls of others. We will proceed to 
explain this at greater length, and to exhibit the 
various Apostles of Suffering at those posts of honor 
in which they have been placed by Divine Provi- 
dence. 

We commence by the Christian family, which 
represents the Holy Church — that is to say, the 
great Catholic family, of which it is itself a part. 



140 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

Unfortunately it is not universally the case that 
all the members of which the family is composed are 
living members. Frequently it happens, and more 
especially so in this corrupted and corrupting age, 
that God meets with enemies in the very bosom of 
those families in which He might have hoped to find 
only friends and faithful servants. But it also hap- 
pens frequently, by a contrast for which we ought 
to thank the kind Providence of God, that close 
beside these souls, poisoned by the pestilential 
breath of sin, appears a sweet and serene figure of 
suffering personified in an angel of purity and can- 
dor, who suffers and prays for those members of the 
family who neither pray nor suffer for themselves. 
Ah ! who can tell the excellence or the efficacy of 
that truly divine mission which is daily and hourly 
accomplished in the retirement of their families by 
these angels of peace, these innocent victims, whose 
prayers and sufferings like lightning conductors turn 
away from the heads of their kindred the bolts of 
divine justice which were on the point of falling 
upon them ! 

The innocent Mary, when she dwelt on earth, 
accomplished this mission of mercy on behalf of all 
the human family of which she had already — by her 
ardent prayers, her incomparable virtue, and her 
untiring patience — become the Advocate and accept- 
able Victim before God. 

Monica, the mother of St. Augustine, wept at 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. , 141 

seeing her beloved son forgetful of her pious lessons, 
and — like the Prodigal — spending in guilty pleasures 
the precious years of his youth. But Monica was a 
Christian mother : she knew that . He Who takes 
account of the gentlest sigh of those who love Him, 
could never forget the prayers and tears of a poor 
mother for the conversion of her only son. She 
prayed, she wept, she suffered, in order to obtain 
this great grace for her Augustine. With what 
wondrous liberality her prayer was granted is 
known to us all ; for God not only granted her the 
grace of her son's conversion, but He chose that 
son as a vessel of election in which to place the per- 
fume of sweetest virtues and the richest stores of 
divine science. As a holy Bishop, a most learned 
Doctor, an incomparable and Catholic genius, 
Augustine shed so much glory upon the Church by 
his virtues, his doctrine, and his immortal writings, 
that the chaste Spouse of Jesus Christ derives from 
him a new glory, and clothes herself with his merits 
as with a mantle of honor. Oh, wondrous power of 
prayer and suffering endured, in union with Jesus 
Christ for the conversion of sinners, and especially 
for those who are united to us by the ties of blood I 
Christian mothers, Christian wives, who may 
read this work, keep always in mind Monica, the 
mother of Augustine. Like that perfect model of 
Christian mothers and wives, become apostles in the 
bosom of your families, not by prayers, good advice, 



142 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

and good example only, but also by your sufferings, 
your trials, your sorrows, endured with resignation 
and love. Thus you may obtain the conversion of 
your husband, who perhaps does not practise his 
religion, whose life is impious or scandalous ; or you 
may gain the conversion or perseverance of your 
children who are already corrupted by the poisonous 
influence of the world, or who are in danger of 
suffering from its deadly influence. Yes, let all of 
you become apostles by suffering, especially on 
behalf of those whom God has united to you by the 
closest ties of blood ; and after them, extend the 
influence of your apostleship to all the members of 
your family. And let this be the field of predilec- 
tion in which you most love to labor. Having con- 
scientiously performed this most important duty, then 
remember that a Christian's heart should be great as 
the whole world, and embrace in its charity all the 
children of the Church, who are our brethren, mem- 
bers of Jesus Christ like ourselves : and all the chil- 
dren of man, our fellows, creatures of God even as 
we are. 

After you have said to our Lord, with the heart- 
felt impulse of faith and love which conveys your 
prayer straight to the Sacred Heart : " O my Jesus, 
deign to accept the sufferings, sorrows, and priva- 
tions which I endure, for the conversion of my 
husband, of my children, of my brother or sister or 
relations, or for their perseverance in well-doing," 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 143 

then add, "O my Jesus, accept them also for the 
needs of the holy Church, my Mother; of the 
Sovereign Pontiff, who is my Father ; of all Christ- 
ians, who are my brethren, especially for those in 
this parish ; for the perseverance of the just, the 
conversion of sinners, the salvation of the dying, 
especially for those who are to die this day ; for the 
deliverance of the souls in Purgatory ; for the com- 
plete extirpation of all anti-Catholic associations, 
which seek to do Thee so much evil ; for the humil- 
iation of Thine enemies; and, finally, for the con- 
version of all infidels." 

If endured in such a manner as this, and offered 
to God in union with the sufferings of our Lord 
Jesus Christ, your sufferings will attain the necessary 
conditions of truly apostolic suffering. Suffering in 
this way and for such an end and object, you will be 
seconding that double impulse of which we have 
before spoken, which is given to docile minds by the 
Holy Spirit ; that is to say, an impulse of universal 
charity and zeal, which inclines the soul to pray and 
to suffer for the whole Church, for the spiritual neces- 
sities of all its members, and even for the whole 
human race ; and another impulse of zeal of a more 
circumscribed nature, which inclines the soul to pray 
and suffer in a more special manner for a certain 
person or a certain class of persons, for some par- 
ticular need of the Church, and for some one end 
rather than another. 

1* 



144 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

Oh ! members of Christian families, fathers, 
mothers, children, brothers, and sisters, accomplish 
toward each other faithfully this double apostleship 
of prayer and suffering. And when trouble comes 
to your home, then stir up your faith and give thanks 
to God. This adversity, this sickness, this reverse 
of fortune, this painful separation — behold in each 
the Cross of Jesus which comes to be set up in your 
house. This afflicted member of your family, this 
sick or infirm sufferer — if he is able to unite his infirm- 
ity, sickness, or affliction to the sufferings of the 
Saviour — is then a member of Jesus Christ infirm, 
sick, afflicted. He is, in a certain way, Jesus Christ 
Himself, bearing His Cross in the person of this suf- 
fering member of His Body. 

If, by a miracle worked by the almighty power 
of God, your house were to be suddenly transformed 
into the holy mountain of Calvary, and you were 
permitted to behold your Blessed Lord upon the 
Cross, His Feet and Hands pierced with nails, His 
Head crowned with thorns, and His Body covered 
with bleeding Wounds, oh ! with what respect, com- 
passion, and love would you not contemplate your 
Saviour suffering and dying for you ! And do you 
not know that this touching spectacle is, to a certain 
extent, displayed to you whenever you have under 
your roof any member of Jesus Christ who is suffer- 
ing, and suffering as a Christian ? Then does your 
house become a second Calvary; the "bed of sick- 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 145 

ness, and more especially the bed of death, becomes 
a Cross on which the sufferer hangs, and where he 
becomes an image of Jesus suffering, agonizing, 
dying. You consider it a blessing to have a Crucifix 
suspended in your house, in your room, or in your 
oratory. Ah ! be assured that a suffering Christian 
who bears his trials, sickness, or infirmity with 
patience and love, is himself a living Crucifix. His 
presence alone is sufficient to draw down the bless- 
ing of Heaven upon all the members of your house- 
hold, and to avert the maledictions which might 
otherwise fall upon it on account of the sins of some 
of its members. 

The venerable Anna Maria Ta'igi, whose process 
of beatification has already been begun by the 
Church, presented in these latter times an admirable 
example of this apostleship of suffering in the midst 
of her family circle. Herself a Christian wife and 
mother, she fulfilled the various duties of her posi- 
tion with a perfection worthy of being proposed as a 
model ; but the most admirable part of the character 
of this "valiant woman " was perhaps her invincible 
patience in suffering, and the great love with which 
she cheerfully embraced it for the needs of the 
Church, and of souls in general ; especially, how- 
ever, for the spiritual and temporal necessities of her 
own relations, her husband and children above all. 
Perhaps some of our readers may like to hear a 
short summary of the noble life of this truly Christian 



146 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

woman, which we will abridge from the Messenger 
of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. 

"When by a miracle of mercy Anna Maria 
Tai'gi was rescued by Almighty God from the whirl- 
pool of vanity and dissipation in which her early 
years had been involved, He revealed to her that 
henceforth she must no longer live for herself, but 
that she must make an entire sacrifice of herself for 
the salvation of souls and for the triumph of the 
Church. From that time forth, in fact, she identified 
herself with the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ ; she 
felt all the misfortunes which attacked it far more 
vividly than her own sorrows ; and she offered her- 
self as a sacrifice to avert those fearful judgments 
which she knew were on the point of overwhelming 
Christendom. It was with reference to this apostolic 
mission that she received the miraculous gift of 
which we have before spoken." 

[The writer here alludes to the extraordinary 
gift of prophecy with which Anna Maria was favored, 
and through which she beheld the course of future 
events in a Sun that was shown to her supernat- 
urally.] 

" This mysterious Sun, which was a figure of the 
Divine Light, made known to her events, both pros- 
perous and adverse, which concerned the Church ; 
and on more than one occasion she was enabled, at 
the cost of great suffering, to avert, or render less 
severe, the just punishments of Heaven. God Him- 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 147 

self exhorted her to offer herself in sacrifice for the 
salvation of His people, and He took the fulfilment 
and accomplishment of this sacrifice upon Himself. 
He kept her hanging upon the Cross throughout the 
whole of her life. We will now give a slight sketch 
of her long martyrdom of forty years, as traced for 
us by her Confessor himself. 

" This pious woman continually suffered from 
violent headaches, which used to increase in intensity 
on Fridays, especially during the hours of the Pas- 
sion of our Blessed Lord. Her eyes felt as if they 
had been pierced with thorns, and it caused her 
intense pain to expose them to the light of day. 
She suffered also in her ears from a severe neuralgic 
pain, which hardly ever left her. 

"Besides the continual privations which she 
imposed upon herself respecting the use of food, she 
always had a taste of insupportable bitterness in her 
mouth. Her sense of smell was exposed to suffer 
from the horrible infection of the sins with which the 
world is filled, and from this cause alone she under- 
went intolerable torment. Her feet and hands were 
affected with violent and acute pains ; in fact, her 
whole body was in a state of continual agony. She 
was likewise attacked by a great number of different 
maladies, such as gout, asthma, hernia, and pains in 
her legs, and this was especially the case during the 
latter years of her life. The priest who lived in her 
house assured me that during her overwhelming 



148 THE AP0STLESH1P OF SUFFERING. 

attacks of pain he used to go from time to time to 
inquire how she felt ; the answer always was : * ' In- 
mortal suffering. ' He would reply : ' Let us do 
the will of God, and say, Fiat voluntas tuaS These 
words seemed to revive her, and she would answer 
cheerfully, and with all her remaining strength and 
energy, ' Si cut in coelo et in terra — Thy will be done 
on earth as it is in heaven.' 

1 i Thus crucified upon her bed of pain, she was, 
in spite of her own sufferings, the joy and consola- 
tion of all who knew her, the source of peace and 
gladness to all who beheld her, and of renewed 
courage and ardor to other afflicted persons. She 
showed an inexpressible charity toward others, and 
took the deepest interest in their affairs, in the con- 
sideration of which she would altogether forget her 
own sufferings. She was ever tranquil, courageous, 
cheerful, and resigned in all things to the will of her 
heavenly Spouse." 

To the bodily sufferings which she endured were 
often added mental trials far more intolerable, — the 
most fearful temptations of the devil, unjust perse- 
cution on the part of men, seasons of actual agony, 
in which she seemed to be completely abandoned by 
her God. Anna Maria endured these sufferings 
joyfully, and added to them many voluntary mortifi- 
cations, which she practised in order to obtain the 
triumph of the Church and the conversion of its 
enemies. She especially directed the efforts of her 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 149 

zeal and the fervor of her prayers against the infernal 
activity of those Secret Societies of which the dark 
and fearful plots had been revealed to her by God. 

Her Confessor proceeds : — 

"After the return of Pius VII., she beheld in 
her mysterious Sun the murderous plans which had 
been conceived by the Secret Societies against Rome 
in general, and especially against the higher ranks 
of the clergy. She frequently went to St. Paul's 
Church, to pour out her heart before God. At such 
times more especially did her fervent charity prompt 
her to intercede by earnest and continual prayer for 
those unhappy persons, and to offer herself to the 
Divine Justice as a victim of love and expiation. 
Therefore, whenever the machinations of the Masonic 
Lodges were brought to nought, this handmaid of 
God was afflicted by some agonizing malady, perse- 
cution, some great trouble, calumny, or fearful 
mental trial. This astonishing phenomenon lasted 
during her whole life. How much is the Church 
indebted to the prayers and penances of that saintly 
woman ! How much does the city of Rome in par- 
ticular owe to her ! 

" She frequently spoke to the priest who was 
her confidential adviser of the persecutions which 
the Church must shortly undergo, and of that 
unhappy epoch of the Church's history in which so 
many men of apparently estimable character would 
be unmasked. 



150 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

" She sometimes inquired of God who would be 
able to resist that fearful trial. The answer she 
received was : ' Those on whom I shall bestow the 
grace of humility.'' On this account, Anna Maria 
established in her family a pious custom of reciting 
after the evening Rosary, three times, the Pater, Ave, 
and Gloria Patri, to the Most Holy Trinity, in order 
to implore Almighty God, out of His infinite mercy 
and kindness, to mitigate the severity of the punish- 
ment reserved by His justice for those unhappy 
times. The chastisement which God proposed to 
inflict upon them had been repeatedly made known 
to her in the mysterious Sun. It pleased God also 
to reveal to her that the Church, having passed 
through various distressing seasons of trial, would 
finally triumph so gloriously that all mankind would 
be amazed at it, that whole nations would return to 
the unity of the Roman Church, and that the aspect 
of the world would be completely changed."* 

Such was Anna Maria Tai'gi, truly a voluntary 
victim, a chosen offering, well worthy to appear 
amongst those especial victims of charity whose 
lives we propose to notice in one of the succeeding 
Chapters. 

We read also of another woman, of Burgos in 
Spain, who had much to suffer during many years 

* See the Life of this venerable servant of God, in the 
valuable English series of biographies, edited by Mr. E. H. 
Thompson. 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 151. 

from her husband, a brutal and irreligious man, who 
treated her with most unheard-of cruelty, all which 
she endured with heroic patience. After they had 
been married forty years, this wicked man received 
the punishment he richly merited, being attacked 
with a most severe and painful illness. His pious 
wife increased her care tenfold, and devoted herself 
to him. As soon as the sickness was declared to be 
mortal, she persuaded the sufferer to receive the last 
Sacraments. When he lost the power of speech, she 
still remained beside him, to console, exhort, and 
encourage him in his last hours ; nor did she cease 
her tender performance of every charitable office 
until his spirit had departed. This holy woman had 
no cause to repent of her long and patient forbear- 
ance, nor of the cares she had expended upon her 
ungrateful and undeserving husband. For, after his 
death, St. Teresa was informed by a special revela- 
tion that his soul was saved, and she announced to 
his holy widow that her heroic patience had won the 
salvation of her husband's soul. 

It may be imagined with what transports of joy 
and thankfulness she received this happy intelligence, 
and how ardent were her acts of thanksgiving to her 
adorable Lord. Such, then, is the marvellous effi- 
cacy and the divine mission of suffering in the circle 
of the family. 



CHAPTER II. 

The Apostleship of Suffering among the Sick and Infirm, 
and those who are on their Deathbed. 

Various passages of this book have given a 
glimpse of the advantages of sickness and infirmity, 
if borne with patience, and the powerful virtue of 
the apostleship which may be found therein. But we 
wish to say something more for the consolation of 
so many poor invalids, of so many who are infirm 
and sick or at death's door, whom our Lord is unit- 
ing with His own sacrifice, holding them as it were 
fast nailed to His own Cross. In this Chapter, 
accordingly, we shall speak more expressly of the 
saving apostleship such souls may practise, by endur- 
ing sickness and infirmity and accepting their death 
with resignation, in union with Jesus Christ, for the 
salvation of souls. 

Yes, for you expressly, we write this Chapter, 
dear souls burdened with infirmity, languishing per- 
haps for many years in your state of weakness, bed- 
ridden, powerless, suffering more than you would 
have done from some sharp illness. You are borne 
down by your many fatigues or by the advance 
of years ; or, if still young, you are bowed before 
the time under the weight of premature feebleness. 
You groan at seeing yourself brought down to forced 
inaction, against every impulse of your zeal if you 

152 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 153 

are anxious for the salvation of souls. If you are a 
religious, you can no longer take your part in the 
exercises of the common life. If you are a priest, 
you can no longer devote yourself to the duties of 
the holy ministry. If you are the father or mother 
of a family, or in any other condition of life, you 
can no longer take an active part along with the 
others in the work and business of your household. 
But be comforted ; your infirmities and languishing 
ill-health, the powerlessness that so tries and wearies 
you, if you only know how to use it, will become in 
your hands a strong instrument of sanctification for 
yourself and of salvation for others. 

For you then expressly, dear souls, do we write 
this Chapter — for you whom our Lord has vouchsafed 
in His mercy to honor with so perfect a resemblance 
to His own suffering life. It is so long since you 
have been stretched on a bed of pain. Your bodily 
strength is broken, you are consumed by fever, in 
every limb you feel sharp and bitter pains. There 
is sadness in your soul ; you are troubled at the sight 
of the affliction of your parents and the friends 
around you, or at the thought that your business is 
left in disorder or seriously deranged. Perhaps you 
have to suffer from being forsaken — from the lack of 
suitable attention, from the want of patience on the 
part of those who should care for you, from the pov- 
erty and distressed circumstances to which you are 
reduced. Be comforted at the thought that your 



154 THE APOSTLESH1P OF SUFFERING. 

Saviour is here close by your side — that like a tender 
Father He leans over the pillow whereon your head 
so vainly seeks for rest. Open your heart to the 
sweet words of love and pity to which His Heart 
gives utterance for your encouragement. And 
remember that by this sickness and pain and afflic- 
tion, by this lonely abandonment, God wishes to 
make you a saint ; and if you will only offer all for 
the salvation of souls, He will also make of you 
an apostle of suffering. 

Last of all, dear souls who are drawing nigh 
unto death, it is for you also that we have written this 
Chapter. To you our Lord, with infinite mercy, 
offers a generous share in the chalice of His own 
agony. However painful and filled with anguish 
may be the state in which you are, deem it your 
happiness to have this last and completest resem- 
blance to Jesus agonizing. Ah, did you but know 
the feelings of tenderest pity with which the fatherly 
Heart of our loving Saviour is filled for you ! I fear 
not to say it — there is not a moment of our life 
wherein our good Jesus shows a greater and more 
heartfelt care for His children, the members of His 
Mystical Body, than when He sees them in their 
death-agony. Then He remembers the great grief 
of his own agony, and this moves Him to an alto- 
gether special pity and love for those of His children 
who are brought low to the same sad extremity. 
Cast yourselves then, dear children, with entire con- 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 155 

fidence into His arms, upon the infinitely merciful 
Heart of Jesus, your Divine Saviour, Who to save 
you suffered in the Garden and on the Cross, shed- 
ding for you even the last drop of His Blood. 

Dear souls, weak and sick unto death, and our 
beloved brothers in Jesus Christ, to understand the 
glory you may give to God, the merits you may gain 
for yourselves, the graces of conversion and salvation 
you may win for your neighbor, it should be enough 
for you to recall how by His sufferings and His death 
Jesus has saved the world ; and how, when you suffer 
patiently with Him and offer to Him your pains for 
the salvation of souls, it is Jesus Who still suffers in 
you and through you continues still to save the 
world. Is not this thought of itself alone enough 
to flood your heart with sweetest consolation in the 
midst of your greatest sufferings ? Only bring to 
mind this sweet foundation-truth of the Christian 
religion : Jesus Christ is our Head, and by baptism 
we have become His members. Therefore when a 
Christian is laid hold of by infirmity and draws near 
to death, it is a member of Jesus Christ that is infirm, 
sick, in his death-agony. It is Jesus Christ Who 
continues in these suffering members of His Mystical 
Body the infirmities, the sorrows and pains, the 
agony and all the sufferings of His mortal life and 
dolorous Passion. 

Therefore, too, you may say: My sufferings 
are the sufferings of Jesus Christ ; and again : The 



156 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

sufferings of Jesus Christ are my sufferings. Is not 
this good reason for consolation? If you take the 
least care to endure and offer your sufferings with 
this intention, how easy will it not be to help to the 
salvation of souls by your pains and thus become an 
apostle of suffering ! 

St. Paul gives to all of us this encouragement, 
when he teaches that all our pains and sufferings are 
but so many sufferings of Jesus Christ. il For as the 
sufferings of Christ abound in us, so also by Christ 
doth our comfort abound." (II. Corinthians, i. 5.) 

A little reasoning will show us the worth of the 
Apostle's teaching. It will make us understand 
better the close union between Jesus Christ and our- 
selves, even though we may be suffering long from 
infirmity and sickness, from sharp pain and — who 
knows ? — from the soul's afflictions as well, from sad- 
ness and weariness of life, from desolation and fear. 

The first reason is that which we have already 
given. Jesus Christ is our Head, and we are His 
members ; and head and members together form but 
one and the same body. Hence the sufferings of the 
members are the sufferings of the head. When the 
foot is trodden on, the mouth in the name of the 
whole head cries out for pain ; yet it is not the head, 
but the foot which has been trampled on. This is 
why our Lord, when He spoke to Saul on the way to 
Damascus, did not say to him : "Why dost thou per- 
secute My disciples?" But what He did say to him 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 157 

was: "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thoic Me ?" He 
thus gave him to understand that He and His disci- 
ples were but one, and that all persecution aimed at 
them was aimed at Himself. 

There is another reason quite as well fitted to 
make us understand this touching truth. It is that, 
when we suffer for the love of Jesus Christ, we make 
our sufferings His by the offering which we make of 
them to Him while we endure them. This is the 
thoughtful saying of St. Ambrose. Again, they are 
His, because it is He Who sends them to us. Through 
the designs of His divine and infinitely merciful 
Providence they come upon us. 

A further reason, chosen among many others, is 
that we could not endure our infirmities and maladies 
and death-agony in a Christian way except by His 
aid and through the grace of the Holy Ghost Whom 
He sends down upon us. It is He Who mingles with 
our sufferings that supernatural element which gives 
them their great price, without which they would be 
useless and of no worth. Truly, we join to this our 
own personal co-operation; but we are capable of 
this very personal co-operation only through the 
help of His grace. For this reason St. Augustine 
cried unto God : "Lord, crowning our merits, Thou 
but crownest Thine own gifts." Coronando merita 
nostra, coronas dona Tua. 

Finally, Jesus Christ looks upon our sufferings as 
His, because they are what is left over of His own 



158 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

sufferings. This is St. Paul's "filling up," final com- 
pletion " of the sufferings of Christ." Adimpleo ea 
quae desunt passionum Christi. 

Courage then, brothers weak and sick and in 
the agonies of death ! Courage and confidence ! 
You suffer, it is true ; but you suffer not alone. 
Jesus, loving and worthy of all love, your dear 
Saviour, your adorable Head, suffers with you and in 
you, His members and cherished children. And by 
the close union He has entered into with you, He 
gives your sufferings a virtue all divine. Say then to 
Him from the inmost depths of your heart : 

" O Jesus my Saviour, most humbly do I bow to 
Thy most holy will ; with love and resignation I 
accept from Thy fatherly hand infirmity and sick- 
ness, and the keen pain and agony which it hath 
pleased Thee to send upon me. Yet Thou wilt 
suffer me to send up to Thee Thine own prayer to 
Thy Heavenly Father, when in Thine Agony in the 
Garden of Olives Thou didst say to Him : Father, 
if Thou wilt, remove this chalice from Me ; yet not My 
will K hut Thine be done. O my Jesus, may Thy holy 
will be done, and not mine. If Thou wishest me to 
dwell with infirmity, blessed be Thy name. If Thou 
wishest sickness to weigh on me long and heavily, 
and pain to try me ever more keenly, still blessed be 
Thy name. If Thou wishest the sacrifice of my life, 
I offer it To Thee with all my heart in union with 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 159 

the offering which Thou madest of Thine own life 
for love of me. If Thou wishest that I should be 
healed and live to suffer, or if Thou wishest me to 
die, alike blessed be Thy holy name. Sit nomen 
Domini benediction. I offer Thee all my sufferings 
and the sacrifice of my life for Thy glory, for the 
expiation of my sins, for the salvation of souls — par- 
ticularly of the members of my own family — and for 
the conversion of sinners — particularly in this city or 
place where I am now suffering for love of Thee. 
My Jesus, mercy ! Thou art my God and my 
Saviour, and Thou shalt one day be my Judge. I 
adore Thee and I love Thee. I have a true sorrow 
for having offended Thee Who art so good and 
great, so powerful and so worthy of faithful service 
and love. O Mary, sweet and Immaculate Mother 
of Jesus, have pity on me, show that thou art also 
my Mother. Monstra te esse Matrem. I beseech 
thee by the agonizing Heart of Jesus Thy well- 
beloved Son and by thine own compassionate Heart, 
pray for me now and in my death-agony — nunc et in 
hora mortis nostrae. Amen. St. Joseph, pray for 
me. St. Michael, pray for me. My good Angel 
that guardest me, pray for me. Holy Angel that 
didst comfort Jesus in His Agony in the Garden, 
strengthen and aid me. All my holy Patrons, pro- 
tect me. Amen." 

Thus we may conclude our reflections by saying 
2 



160 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

to all our dear brethren in Christ, who are infirm and 
sick and at the point of death : Let it be your chief 
occupation to keep yourselves united with our Lord 
Jesus Christ, our Divine Head, — united with His 
intentions and His dispositions. All depends on the 
closeness of this union of the members with their 
Head. Take care in the time of infirmity and pain, 
and in the anguish of mortal agony, to remain 
closely united with Jesus weak, suffering, agonizing, 
dying. Most of all, be closely united with the holy 
dispositions of humility, submission, meekness, 
patience, zeal, love, with which Jesus bore all His 
pains and sufferings. So much the more will you be 
like unto Him, so much the more glory and conso- 
lation will you procure to His loving Heart, so many 
the more heavenly blessings will you draw down upon 
yourselves and your families, so much the more 
powerfully will you help to the salvation of souls, so 
much the more will you be true apostles of suffering. 
Ah, did you but know how powerful with the 
Heart of God is the Christian who from infirmity or 
sickness, or most of all from the agony of death, 
offers his sufferings as a true disciple of Jesus cruci- 
fied, accepting weakness as sickness with resigna- 
tion, generously making to God the sacrifice of his 
life for love of Him and the salvation of souls. 
There is naught which God, great and infinite in 
goodness as He is in power, is not ready to grant to 
the prayers — even to the least sigh and groaning — of 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 161 

this suffering member of His Divine Son Jesus. You 
have only to recall to mind what He has ever done 
in behalf of His faithful servants, when like you they 
were in weakness-and sickness or in their last agony. 

What great things did He not work for His 
glory and the salvation of souls through St. Catharine 
of Sienna, a simple maiden of only a moderate con- 
dition in life, whose years scarcely reached to thirty- 
three. What wonderful power to touch hearts and 
sway the minds of men was not given to St. Bernard, 
St. Francis of Assisi, St. Lutgarde, St. Bridget, St. 
Gertrude — all so many truly living members of Jesus 
Christ, nailed to His Cross by every kind of tribula- 
tion and suffering. 

One day the Holy Ghost said these words to the 
Blessed Angela of Foligno: "I am the Divine 
Power giving thee such grace and bestowing on thee 
such virtue that all who shall see thee shall have from 
their communication with thee some profit for their 
salvation ; and not they alone, but all who shall 
think of thee or remember thee and even those who 
shall but hear thy name pronounced." No wonder 
that the learned and pious author from whom this is 
quoted,* should exclaim: "How much may not a 
man, closely united with Jesus Christ, help to the 
salvation of the world, even from the privacy of his 
room, when all alone, or in the midst of a desert." 

* Father Saint- Jure, S. J., many of whose works have been 
translated into English. 



162 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

And he goes on to quote further from the spiritual 
writer Blosius, that those who are united with God 
and give Him full power to work in them as He 
wishes are very pleasing and dear to Him ; and they 
do more for the advancement of the Church and the 
salvation of men in an hour than others — whoever 
they may be — could do in many years. 

"Therefore," he concludes, "let all our care 
be to unite ourselves closely with Jesus Christ, to 
procure and to perfect by every means in our power 
this sacred union. Let us ask this grace of Him 
without ceasing, without troubling ourselves about 
anything else, since everything will be right if we 
are only one with our Lord. Let us fear nothing and 
grieve over nothing whatever ; we shall soon become 
rich and virtuous and perfect by means of this union. 
"For it is easy in the eyes of God on a sudden to make 
a poor man rick." (Ecclesiasticus, xi. 23.) And 
St. Peter, Prince of the Apostles, says to us: "The 
God of all grace, Who hath called us unto His ete7-nal 
glory in Christ fesus, after you have suffered a little, 
will Himself perfect you and confirm you and establish 
you. To Him be glory and empire for ever. Amen." 
(I. Peter, v. 10.) 

It is well to put here, at the end of this Chapter, 
the touching story of the prolonged sufferings and 
the heroic patience of a poor sick woman who 
deserves to be proposed as a model to all who are 
infirm or sick or in their agony, whatever be the 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 163 

nature of their infirmity or illness, their pains or their 
agony. For what was there in the way of suffering 
which this poor invalid had not to endure? We 
speak of St. Lidwine, who lived in Holland in the 
fifteenth century. Our readers will allow us to pre- 
serve in our story the simplicity of language of the 
author from whom we borrow it.* 



Human life has so many ills to bear that patience 
is absolutely needed to enable us to put up with them. 
For this reason the life of the Virgin Saint Lidwine 
is a very helpful one. The pains she suffered made 
her life a vivid picture of a long death-agony ; and 
she gave throughout a rare and singular example of 
patience and submission to the will of our Lord, by 
suffering and enduring. . . . God took her in 
hand to chasten her and to try her by pain and 
by labors, proposing her to His Church as a 
perfect model of patience and perseverance in His 
love. 

When she was fifteen years old, one very cold 
day, she was watching her companions skating on the 
ice according to the custom in her country. One 
of them stumbled against her and caused her to fall 
so heavily that she broke one of the small ribs, which 
made her suffer terrible pains. So many ills there- 
upon came one on top of the other, that it seems 

* Ribadineira, Flowers of the Saints, 14 April, feast of St. 
Lidwine, Virgin : unhappily, this Catholic classic is not to be 
had in an English translation. 



164 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

incredible that a human body could endure so much, 
unless the hand of our Lord, Who had sent the 
suffering, had been with her to preserve her and 
keep her alive amid so many mortal ailments. The 
more remedies were applied, the worse she grew. 
She could hardly use any of her members and was 
obliged to drag her body around on all fours, on her 
hands and knees. . . . 

She was unable to sleep ; and to add to her ills, 
an abscess was formed in her bowels. . . . She 
experienced a heat that burned her to the very bone ; 
her arm and right shoulder became dislocated ; her 
head throbbed with pain over the eyebrows and 
around the forehead, such as no nails could have 
caused ; her eyes, and her teeth and her throat, and 
nearly all her members, had each its own peculiar suf- 
fering. So much blood flowed from her mouth, nose, 
and ears, and even from her eyes, that every one mar- 
velled. Her lungs were dried up; her liver had 
decomposed. Yet all of this she bore with extraor- 
dinary patience. She was never without a fever ; so 
that there was neither vein nor nerve in her whole 
body which was not affected and tortured by a pain 
of its own. 

In this kind of life, or rather in this slow and 
exhausting death, this holy virgin passed thirty-eight 
years, poor, alone, abandoned and without any one 
to have recourse to save our Lord, Who afflicted her 
and Who alone could console her. . . . God 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 165 

sent to her a venerable priest; He visited her and 
announced to her the only consolation that would be 
hers in this life. This she would find in the unceas- 
ing meditation of the bitter sufferings which the Son 
of God endured on the Cross for our sins. He 
exhorted her, too, to think often on the torments the 
holy Martyrs had endured for the love of Jesus 
Christ. He brought her the Blessed Sacrament and 
in giving It to her said: "Up to this I have 
exhorted you to meditate unceasingly on the Passion 
of Jesus Christ ; now He is come in person, to visit 
and overwhelm you with consolation." 

The Blessed Lidwine, as she listened to these 
words, wept tenderly ; and her sorely tried heart 
continued so resolute and so satisfied, that she asked 
nothing thereafter from God save an increase of her 
sufferings. A plague was devastating the country. 
.She begged our Lord not to visit His wrath upon 
His people, who were His children, although sinners, 
but to chastise her in their stead. 

Lidwine' s charity was no less great than her 
patience. Her mother had left to her some few 
household goods. These she sold and gave the 
price to the poor. She disposed in the same way of 
all which devout persons gave her, distributing their 
alms to those poor people who were ashamed to beg, 
though she was as needy as any of them. 

Margaret Countess of Holland came to see her, 
and was astonished to find such treasures and 



166 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

heavenly gifts in the midst of such poverty and 
abandonment by the world. 

Indeed it was a spectacle worthy of admiration 
to see this woman, so beset on all sides by the pangs 
of suffering, forgetting and neglecting herself, and 
at the same time so attentive and watchful for the 
wants of others. Our Lord more than once showed 
by miracles how agreeable to Him was her charity. 

Lidwine was very humble. Her slightest faults 
seemed great to her, and she bowed to everybody's 
judgment, so greatly did she desire to be despised. 

She had one companion, an ill-humored person, 
who used to abuse her roundly and even to spit in 
her face, without disturbing the holy virgin's serenity 
in the least. She was asked why she put up with 
everything from this person. "In order," she 
answered, "to correct her by being patient; and 
because persons like her give a chance to acquire 
virtue to those who lack it. It is, too, in order to 
keep her from falling into a greater passion." 

We must not be surprised that Lidwine, being 
so greatly favored by God, should have gathered 
roses from among the thorns, and have found con- 
tentment in the midst of pain and suffering. She 
was in continual relations with her Guardian Angel, 
with whom she held sweet converse. He appeared 
to her frequently, to console her by his presence and 
to raise the clouds of darkness from her afflicted 
heart. She used to say herself that her heaviest 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 167 

woes became light and were no longer felt, as soon 
as she saw her Angel. What then, adds the pious 
historian very sensibly, what shall be in comparison 
the vision of God face to face? 

Besides her Guardian Angel, many other Angels 
appeared to her in human shape. She spoke to 
them, called them by name and knew whose guardians 
they were. Our Lord Himself favored her with His 
presence and left on her body the impress of His 
own Sacred Wounds, in order that she who experi- 
enced such grievous torments in her body might 
feel, in the interior of her soul, the sufferings her 
beloved Spouse had endured in His Sacred Passion ; 
and that, by the stigmata in her body, she might 
become a living representation of the Passion of our 
Lord. 

The death of one of her brothers caused her 
great grief; and this sorrow, a little too excessive, 
made her lose some of the divine consolations. 
This was revealed to a holy man, who admonished 
Lidwine of it. After that she bore the death of her 
brother with greater constancy. From this we see 
how much our Lord desires His servants to be with- 
drawn from imperfect and excessive attachments, 
even so natural ones as regret for the death of a 
father or a brother. 

Our Lord gave her also the gift of prophecy, 
and laid open before her the secrets of the hearts of 
those who came to see her, as if she read them in a 
2* 



168 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

book. Many came to seek at her hands a remedy 
for their ills. Among others, there came a Canon 
Regular who implored her to ask God to take from 
him that which displeased the Divine Majesty most 
in him and was an obstacle in the way of his salva- 
tion. This Canon had a very beautiful voice, which 
was a cause of vainglory to him whenever he sang. 
The moment Lidwine began her prayer for him he 
became hoarse and never after sang. Not knowing 
how he had caught this cold, he underwent treatment 
for it; but as soon as the doctor learned what had 
passed between him and Lidwine he said : " If that 
be the case, neither Hippocrates nor Galen (that is, 
the doctors) can effect a cure." 

She knew the hour of her death, and by way of 
preparing for it she asked pardon of those around 
her for whatever offence she might have given them. 
On Easter eve, our Lord appeared in her room, with 
His Holy Mother and the choir of Apostles. [Was 
she not herself an apostle of suffering ?] Our Lord 
consoled her and anointed her with a mysterious 
ointment, the heavenly odor of which remained 
around her till the morrow. On Easter Tuesday, 
she asked to be left alone with her little nephew; 
then, putting herself irf prayer, she yielded up her 
soul to God. Her body was found encircled with a 
girdle of hair cloth, which afterward was used to 
expel the demons from the bodies of possessed per- 
sons. Revelations were made in several places of 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 169 

her glory and of the solemnity with which the 
heavenly Court of the Blessed had welcomed 
her. Her body, which through life had been 
deformed and covered with sores, was found whole 
and most beautiful. Our Lord wrought through her, 
after her death, many miracles. She died on April 
14, 1433, when she was fifty-three years old. Her 
life was written by Thomas a-Kempis, the author of 
that precious and well-known book — the Following ox 
Imitation of Jesus Christ. 

Before closing the story of this beautiful and 
noble life, let us say a few words, on the filial piety 
of St. Lidwine toward the Blessed Virgin, that her 
example may move you, dear souls in infirmity and 
sickness in agony, to put your chief confidence, after 
God, in this good Mother whom the Church so fitly 
calls, Health of the Sick, Consoler of the Afflicted, 
Help of Christians : Salus infirmorum, Consolatrix 
afflietoruni, Auxilium Christianorum. 

From her infancy Lidwine' s mother had instilled 
into her a tender devotion to Mary. Accordingly, 
she never failed to salute Mary's statues and pictures 
with respect ; she paid them frequent visits and laid 
before them the little objects of which she could 
dispose. When her mother sent her into the fields 
to her father or her brothers, she never failed to 
enter the village church, there to say the Hail Mary 
before our Lady's altar. One day she returned from 
the fields somewhat later than usual. Her mother, 



170 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

who had had need of her, began scolding her for it, 
and said to her: " Where have you been gadding,, 
my daughter?" 

"Pardon me this time," was the sweet child's 
reply, "I went to visit my beautiful Mistress, and 
she returned my greeting with a smile that made me 
so happy I could not leave her." 

Some years after, on the evening of some festival, 
the Blessed Lidwine fell into an ecstasy. First, she 
was led to the foot of this same altar of the Blessed 
Virgin, whither her feet could no longer carry her 
on account of her painful infirmities. There she 
prayed awhile ; and then she was carried to Purga- 
tory. There some poor souls were awaiting the help 
of her charity, to shorten their sufferings. Finally 
the Angels introduced her into the Assembly of the 
Saints. She saw the different choirs, and heard their 
sacred canticles. Some of the Martyrs encouraged 
her to bear courageously the pains God sent her : 
" How should not our example," they said, "ani- 
mate you in this generous strife. See our present 
condition. What remains with us now of the woes 
we once bore for Jesus Christ. . After having passed 
through fire and water we have been allotted, in this 
place of refreshment, perfect peace ; and our suffer- 
ings have given place to infinite consolations." 

Dear and pious Reader, when your charity brings 
you to the infirm, to the bedside of the sick and the 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 171 

agonizing, do not fail to encourage them by the 
motives and examples we have proposed. If with- 
out too great fatigue they can listen to these things, 
read them from time to time some passages from 
this Chapter, for we have written it for them. To 
it we pray the Agonizing Heart of Jesus and the 
Compassionate Heart of Mary to give, with their 
blessing, a grace of consolation and salvation for 
each well-beloved suffering brother, and for you, 
dear Reader, as often as you render them this char- 
itable service. Suggest to them especially the senti- 
ments of the prayers of this Chapter. Invite them 
to make, from time to time, acts of faith, hope, 
charity, contrition, humility, submission, and confi- 
dence, with the offering of their sufferings and their 
life for the salvation of souls. Invite them to join 
you in saying with their whole heart : 

" My God, I adore Thee ; and I believe in Thee, 
because Thou art Truth itself. I hope in Thee, 
because Thou art faithful to Thy promises. I love 
Thee, because Thou art infinitely good ; and for 
love of Thee I love my neighbor as myself. My 
God, I regret exceedingly having offended Thee; 
pardon me through the merits of my Saviour Jesus, 
Thy divine Son. My God, I am a poor sinner, be 
favorable to me, have pity on me. My God, Thy 
holy will be done. My God, I put all my confidence 
in Thine Infinite Mercy. My God, I offer Thee the 



172 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

sacrifice of my sufferings and of my life for the salva- 
tion of souls and the conversion of sinners. Lord, 
into Thy Hands I commend my spirit. Jesus, Mary, 
Joseph, I love you ; have pity on me, now and at the 
hour of my death. Agonizing Heart of Jesus, I love 
Thee; have mercy on me. Compassionate Heart of 
Mary, I love thee ; pray for me. St. Michael Arch- 
angel, defend me. My holy Guardian Angel, my 
holy Patrons, pray for me. Amen. 



CHAPTER III. 

The Apostleship of Suffering amongst Priests and their Con- 
gregations. 

Although a Priest's chief function is to offer 
sacrifice, yet the holy Victim Which his consecrated 
hands daily offer to God, speaks in the clearest tones, 
saying that he too must offer himself in union with 
it as a victim for the salvation of the people. And 
although he is not bound so closely as the Religious 
to a life of severe mortification, yet it is no less' true 
that his life should be a life of self-sacrifice, and thus 
should become a kind of continuation of the sacri- 
fice of our Saviour Jesus. The humblest among the 
faithful, for the simple reason that he too is a mem- 
ber of Jesus Christ, is bound to follow in the steps of 
Christ to Calvary. How much more strongly, then, 
must every Priest feel bound to do this, since in his 
quality of Priest he is expected to bear a more 
especial resemblance to Jesus Christ, Who is at once 
Priest and Victim ; and how much more is the Priest 
obliged to set to the faithful who are confided to his 
care an example of every virtue, and particularly of 
that Christian spirit of self-sacrifice which is so 
strongly recommended to us by our Lord. 

Here let us repeat the sacred words : Christum 
oporluit pati — "It behoved Christ to suffer' 11 (St. 
Luke, xxiv. 46) for the salvation of mankind. And 

173 



174 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

Christ has suffered, and by virtue of His sufferings 
every child of Adam may henceforth aspire to eternal 
life. 

Now we have also plainly shown, while speak- 
ing of the divine mission of suffering in apostolic men 
of all ages, that there is not one of them who, in 
addition to the apostleship of the word and to the 
other various functions of the apostolic ministry, has 
not united the apostleship of suffering ; that is to 
say, they all have fertilized by their sweat and their 
mortifications, by their sufferings and trials of every 
kind, that seed of Evangelical truth which they have 
scattered abroad in the hearts of men. And it was 
at this price alone, at the price of endless fatigues 
and countless privations, that these men of God, who 
were sent by Him to extend the bounds of His vine- 
yard and to cultivate it, were enabled to establish 
our holy religion in the various countries of the 
world. Ah ! if the laborer who sows the grain of 
wheat in the ground cannot hope to see it spring up, 
until he has himself watered with the sweat of his 
brow every one of the furrows which he traces with 
the plough, how much more necessary must it be that 
the Ministers of that Divine Husbandman, Who — 
God as He was — was forced to water the barren 
hearts of men with His own Blood, in order to enable 
them to bring forth the fruits of eternal life, should 
in their turn water with their own sweat each of the 
furrows that they trace in souls, in order that the 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 175 

seeds of the word of the Gospel committed to their 
keeping may bring forth fraits of salvation and of 
life everlasting ! 

Let us hear the words of St. Paul, that finished 
model of a holy Bishop, holy Priest, and true Min- 
ister of Jesus Christ. In him we behold the Priest 
and Victim united ; in him we may admire the excel- 
lent alliance of the burning zeal of the Apostle of 
Gospel truth, and the heroic self-sacrifice of the 
Apostle of Suffering. Who has preached more than 
St. Paul, or done more in the way of evangelizing 
the nations ? He has received the peculiar title of 
Apostle of the Nations. Who has ever suffered more 
than St. Paul-— by his labors and tribulations, 
by persecutions of all kinds ? Who* amongst the 
Apostolic men of all ages of the world, has offered 
himself more freely than St. Paul to become a Victim 
in union with Jesus Crucified, Who was not only the 
sole subject of his preaching but at the same time the 
sole object of His imitation ? Jesum Christum et 
hunc crucifxufn. But let us hear him relate the suf- 
ferings he underwent in order to increase the fruit- 
fulness of his Apostleship and to show himself the 
Minister of Jesus crucified. Ministri Christi sunt, 
he says, speaking of the other Apostles : 
plus ego ; in laboribits plurimis, in carceribus abundan- 
tius, in plagis supra modum, in mortibus frequenter. 
A Judaeis quinquies quadragenas una minus accept. 
Ter virgis caesus sum, semel lapidatus sum, ter nau- 



176 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

fragiumfeci. Node et die in prof undo maris fui. In 
itineribus saepe, periculis fluminum, periculis latro- 
num, periculis ex genere, periculis ex gentibus, peri- 
culis in civitale, periculis in solitudine, periculis in 
mari, periculis in falsi s fratribus. In lab ore et 
aerumna, in vigiliis multis, in fame et siti, in jejuniis 
multis, in frigore et nuditate. Praeter ilia quae 
extrinsecus sunt, instantia me a quotidiana, sollicitudo 
omnium ecclesiarum." (II. Corinthians, xi. 23-28.) 

We shall not translate this passage. We speak 
to the Priests of Jesus Christ ; they will understand 
it. To sum up its contents in one sentence : St. 
Paul was the Apostle of Jesus Christ, but he was at 
the same time a Victim with Jesus Christ ; that is to 
say, he was jtfst as much an Apostle of Suffering as 
an Apostle of the Word and Gospel of Jesus ; his 
whole Apostolic life being like his Divine Master's, 
a continual crucifixion and continual martyrdom. 
Tota vita Christi crux fuit et martyrium. What a 
sublime lesson, what a noble example, what a per- 
fect pattern for all of us Priests of Jesus Christ ! 

Yes, let us be worthy followers of St. Paul, as 
he also was of Jesus. He himself recommends us 
to do this in his first Epistle to the Corinthians: 
Imitator es mei e stole, sicut et ego Christi. (I. Corin- 
thians, xi. 16.) Yes, O great Apostle, we will indeed 
follow thee. Assist us to walk in thy generous foot- 
steps, even until death. And as, like thee, we are 
permitted to enjoy the wondrous honor of ascending 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 177 

daily to the Altar to offer the Sacred Victim of our 
salvation, we will prepare for this daily honor by a 
daily sacrifice, living the life of a true Priest, ever 
humble, laborious, mortified. Having been called 
like thee to preach Jesus Crucified to the nations, 
we will ever like thee bear His Cross in our hearts 
and in our members, no less than on our lips and in 
our words. Thus too, like thee, we shall join the 
preaching of our example to our words, for the 
edification of the Christian people. 

Truly, it is just and right that it should be so. 
God requires it of us ; the sacredness of our charac- 
ter and calling demands it ; the success of our min- 
istry depends upon it, and our flocks themselves 
expect it from us, especially in these times of trouble 
and calamity, when souls are falling fast into perdi- 
tion and the priestly office has become almost as 
much the office of a Victim as that of a Teacher 
and Offerer of Sacrifice. Inter vestibulum et altare 
plorabunt sacerdotes. And when has the Priest, the 
Minister of Jesus Christ, ever had more cause to 
weep between the porch and the Altar than in the 
present days? 

O Jesus, great High Priest and Victim once 
offered for the sins of many, Thou hast deigned to 
associate us with Thyself in Thy priestly office : 
deign also to associate us with Thyself in Thy 
Sacrifice. 

In spite of our unworthiness, Thou hast deigned 



178 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

to make us Thy Priests : make us also Thy Victims. 
Immolate us with Thyself, as Thou dost daily immo- 
late Thyself for us when offered by our hands in the 
Holy Mass. May our holocaust, united to Thine, 
obtain grace for this unhappy generation ! We offer 
it to Thee for this end: for Thy Glory, for the 
triumph of Thy Holy Church, our Mother, for the 
eternal salvation of souls and especially for those 
who are confided to our care. 

Pope St. Clement, in explaining that passage 
of the Holy Scriptures : Et iniquitates eorum ipse 
portabit, — "He shall bear their iniquities' (Isaias, 
liii. n), addresses himself to the shepherds of souls, 
saying to them: " You are mediators between God 
and the faithful who are entrusted to your care. 
You must therefore imitate our Lord Jesus Christ, 
Who is the great Mediator of all : and as He, inno- 
cent and spotless, bore our sins upon the Cross, 
suffering the punishment justly due to our offences, 
thus also should you consider the sins of your people 
as your own." Now it is also said of our blessed 
Saviour in the Prophet Isaias, Hie peccata nostra 
portat, et pro nobis dolet. It is easy from this to 
draw the conclusion : You, then, shepherds of souls, 
you also should bear the sins of your people, and 
should suffer in expiation for them. When the hail 
is falling upon one field, there is another upon 
which it does not fall. A holy shepherd who offers 
himself a victim for his flock, draws upon himself 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 179 

suffering, crosses and trials, perhaps death itself; 
but he averts the punishments and the vengeance of 
God from his people, and especially the punishment 
of everlasting death. 

Monseigneur Affre, the immortal Archbishop of 
Paris who, like the Good Shepherd, gave his life 
for his flock, offered himself and died as a Victim 
on the barricades ; and at once the torrent of the 
outbreak returned to its own place. Blessed is that 
Priest who cherishes in his inmost heart the desire 
of self-sacrifice ; who never celebrates Mass without 
offering himself up in union with the Sacred Victim 
for all the souls committed to his charge — as the 
pious author of the Imitation advises, Beatus qui se 
Domino in holocaustum offert quoties celebrat aui 
communicat. (IV. x.) But still more blessed is that 
Priest who, making thus the daily offering of himself 
with Jesus Christ, puts it also into daily practice and 
realizes it by a humble and mortified life. In him 
shall be accomplished the promise of the Holy Spirit 
as expressed by the Prophet Isaias : " When He shall 
make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see a long 
posterity.''' These words, which in their primary 
meanifig refer to our Lord Jesus Christ — the one 
Great Offering for the sins of all men — may also be 
applied in a secondary sense to the Priest who offers 
himself for his people. 

The Priest has a thousand opportunities of real- 
izing this life of self-sacrifice. Not to speak of the 



180 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

various maladies, infirmities, and other human afflic- 
tions which he shares in common with the rest of the 
children of Adam, and which are so many opportuni- 
ties sent him by God of exercising his patience, does 
he not find in the daily exercise of his sacred 
ministry, if performed with faithfulness, an ample 
field for abnegation? We need not particularize 
more than one or two of the offices of his ministry, 
such as visiting the sick and attending upon the 
dying at all hours of the day and night. Are there 
not in the course of these every-day duties continual 
occasions of a sacrifice often renewed and always full 
of merit, if he fulfils them perfectly? It is a sacri- 
fice most salutary also to the sick and the dying, who 
may owe the grace of their conversion at the last and, 
consequently, of their eternal salvation to a visit 
from their good Priest, whose generous and devoted 
zeal will thus be richly rewarded by God. Who 
knows what might have become of that poor soul if 
the Priest, yielding to indifference or fatigue or the 
trouble attending continual visiting, had delayed the 
accomplishment of this important duty ; or if, after 
once performing it, he had left the sick man to him- 
self, saying: "I have given him the last 'Sacra- 
ments !" Oh ! fatal word to many whose illness has 
been a lingering one, and in whose case the devil 
profits by the absence of the Priest to dispose the 
dying person in his own manner ! 

And is there not also in the duty of preaching 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 181 

ample occasion for self-sacrifice on the part of the 
Priest, which may be turned to great account for the 
salvation of souls ? The serious work of preparing 
a sermon, a retreat, or a catechism, is not this a sac- 
rifice of great utility to those souls in whose favor the 
sermon is preached or the catechetical instruction 
given ? The generous efforts made by you, zealous 
Pastors, fervent Priests, to prepare the food of gospel 
instruction for those children of God who are also 
your children, are they not so many drops of sweat 
for which Jesus will give you as many drops of His 
own Blood, to give fertility to your words and to 
make them bring forth fruit a hundredfold ? 

It is well known to every good Priest that the 
fruit derived by souls from any sermon — all other 
things being equal — is in exact proportion to the 
labor which the preacher has expended upon it, to 
the purity of intention with which it was composed, 
and to the fervor of the preacher's desire to promote 
the glory of God and the salvation of his fellow-men. 
If to this cross of immediate preparation the Priest, 
as minister of Gospel truth, unites a remote prepara- 
tion — that is to say, a life of humility and self-abne- 
gation, from his first days in the Seminary up to the 
present moment — then is his word indeed powerful 
and penetrating as a two-edged sword. When an 
apostolic man unites in his own person the power of 
the Word and the power of the Cross, then is he 
truly irresistible, then is he fully invested with the 



182 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

power of Christ. Such was St. Francis Xavier ; and 
how mighty were the victories wrought by his 
apostleship ! 

It was he who exclaimed with that burning zeal 
which inflamed his apostle's heart : " Lord, give me 
souls ; give me more souls ! ' ' Da mihi animas. 
But it was the same Saint who, at the very time that 
he was asking God for souls, asked Him for Crosses 
also : Amplius, Domine, amplius. This was indeed 
a true Apostle, a true Minister of Jesus Christ. 

The preacher who proclaims to his people the 
words of a Crucified Redeemer without bearing the 
Cross in his own person is not a true preacher of the 
Gospel. His discourses may be applauded, his elo- 
quence may obtain brilliant success, crowds of admir- 
ing hearers may press around his pulpit ; but his 
influence goes no further. No fruits of conversion, 
no fruits of grace or of the salvation of souls, are 
produced by him in souls. If the preacher himself 
be not -a living branch of the tree of life, — that is to 
say, of the Cross, — what fruit can you expect him to 
bear unto life eternal? And yet it was for the 
express purpose of producing such fruit as this that 
our Blessed Lord conferred upon him his Apostolic 
Mission, and said to him as He sent him forth : 
Posui vos ut eatis, et fructum afferatis, et fructus 
vester maneat. 

Woe to the preacher who shall give a false inter- 
pretation to his Master's words, and preach himself 



THE AP0STLESH1P OF SUFFERING. 183 

instead of preaching, as St. Paul did, Jesus Crucified ! 
St. Paul says : Jesum et hunc crucifixum. The only 
fruit which such a man can produce in the souls of 
his hearers is a certain amount of admiration for his 
talents, but not a particle of the love of Jesus Christ 
or of His sacred doctrine. We inquire with terror 
— What, do you think, will be the feelings of this 
scatterer of fine words when at the last day, before 
the great tribunal of the Judge of the living apd the 
dead, he shall be thus addressed by our Crucified 
Lord : ' ' Whom hast thou preached in thy discourses ? 
Whom hast thou taken for thy example in thy way 
of life ? What fruit has thy preaching brought forth 
in the souls of men? Thou wast called to preach 
Jesus Crucified, and thou hast preached thyself; 
thou wast called to imitate Jesus Crucified in thy life 
and conversation, and thou hast fled from My Cross 
in order to seek in everything thine own wishes and 
satisfaction. I sent thee to bring forth fruit which 
should remain unto all eternity ; look now amongst 
My elect, canst thou recognize one as being the fruit 
of thy preaching? The fruits which thou hast 
striven to produce are dried up like thyself. Thou 
art but a dry and withered branch, worthy to be cast 
into the fire." 

Woe, a thousand times woe to that Priest, to 
that preacher of the Gospel, to that pastor and 
instructor of souls, if at the last day he shall be 
doomed to hear such terrible words as these from 

3 



184 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

the lips of the Son of God ! It would have been 
far better for him never to have received the sacred 
anointing, but to have remained in the ranks of 
ordinary Christians. If he had fallen there, his fall 
would have been at least less striking, and these 
words of holy Scripture could not have been appli- 
cable to his case : Quomodo cecidisti de coelo, Lucifer, 
qui mane oriebaris I 

Therefore, my Venerable Brethren, for it is to 
you that this Chapter is addressed, let us be Priests ; 
but let us at the same time be Victims with Jesus 
Christ ; and when we ascend to the Altar let us 
imagine that we are ascending the Hill of Calvary; 
let us unite our sacrifice to that of the Lamb without 
spot, and let us say, in His own words to the Father 
at the commencement of His mortal existence: 
"Here I am, My Father, a willing Offering." Ecce 
venio. Every good Priest, when he considers the 
overwhelming evils which threaten the Church of 
God, will understand how timely is this voluntary 
sacrifice ; and, as St. Paul offered himself a victim 
for the Philippians, he too will count it joy to offer 
himself a sacrifice with Jesus Christ for the salvation 
of souls, especially of those souls which have been 
committed to his care : Sed et si immolor supra sacri- 
ficium et obsequium fidei vestrae, gaudeo et congratulor 
omnibus vobis. (Philip, ii. 17.) Such were the 
feelings of the great Apostle, — such are and should 
ever be the feelings of every true Priest of our Lord 
Jesus Christ. 



CHAPTER IV. 

The Apostleship of Suffering in Religious Congregations and 

Communities. 

Here, above all, we may reasonably expect to 
meet with the true Apostles of Suffering ; here should 
this Apostleship — everywhere so fruitful when rightly 
put to use — bring forth fruit a hundredfold. Relig- 
ious, in fact, from the very nature of their profession, 
and especially such as belong to the more austere 
Orders, are placed in the most advantageous con- 
ditions possible for carrying out this Apostleship. 

Their vows have placed them in a state of per- 
petual self-sacrifice which is most pleasing to God, 
and draws down His special- benediction on the 
world. ■ Indeed, by the three vows of Poverty, 
Chastity, and Obedience, the Religious becomes, as 
it were, crucified. Those three vows, which oblige 
to a life of perpetual sacrifice, represent the three 
nails which fix for ever to the Cross and thus 
irrevocably unite to the great Victim of Calvary. 
Through these three substantial religious vows, as 
through so many voluntary wounds, three rivulets of 
blood flow forth ; in other words, the whole earthly 
and sensual life of the Old Man ebbs away and gives 
place to the life of the New Man, a life wholly 
supernatural and divine in Jesus Christ. 

And if to these three vows of Religion be added 

185 



186 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

a special vow for the peculiar objects of some special 
Institute, then this is a fourth nail added to the other 
three ; and the wound caused by this last is usually 
the most painful and most deeply felt of any. It is 
the wound in the heart ; it is, in fact, the means by 
which self-sacrifice is more closely brought home to 
the heart. Thus every Religious who has made the 
three vows of Religion, and still more if he has 
taken a fourth vow and belongs to one of the 
austerer Orders, is, by the very fact of his vocation, 
placed in the category of those Christians whom our 
Lord has especially chosen to be associated with Him 
in His office of Victim and in His Sacrifice of Blood. 
The offering which the Religious makes of himself 
to God by the vows of Religion, is an offering of 
such immense value and merit that St. Jerome, 
St. Cyprian, and St. Bernard call this sacrifice a 
second baptism ; and theologians affirm that it obtains 
for the offerer a full remission of all his sins. 

We must not then be astonished to find that the 
Saints compare the religious life to a martyrdom. 
St. Bernard was of this sentiment, and hesitated not 
to say: "In truth, this martyrdom is not perhaps so 
horrible as that in which the body is torn to pieces 
in torments; but on account of its long duration it 
is more agonizing, and harder to endure." 

During the first three centuries of the Church, 
the special mission of perpetuating the Sacrifice of 
Calvary was entrusted by the Man-God to the Mar- 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 187 

tyrs. They shed their blood by thousands for the 
faith and to procure the application of the merits 
of His Most Precious Blood to all mankind. Their 
vows were heard. It was after these legions of 
noble victims had voluntarily shed their blood for 
Christ, that His Church issued victorious from the 
Catacombs and ascended the throne of the Roman 
Emperors who had been her persecutors, to continue 
her peaceful reign over the hearts and souls of men 
to the end of time. But when the Martyrs had per- 
formed their part in this sublime mission, Jesus 
Christ imposed the duty upon other members of His 
Mystical Body to continue it in their turn. For, as 
there must ever be upon our altar an unbloody sac- 
rifice to perpetuate the presence of the God-Man 
amongst us, according to His promise, so must there 
be, until the consummation of all things, certain 
Christians — living members of Jesus Christ — whose 
special calling it is to continue His bloody sacrifice. 
And therefore the Son of God, as soon as the perse- 
cution ceased, substituted for the Martyrs of the 
Catacombs the Martyrs of the Religious life, and 
especially the Martyrs of the Cloisters which may be 
considered as so many sacred Catacombs. From 
that very time, in fact, the great monastic institu- 
tions took their rise, and from very small begin- 
nings almost imperceptibly assumed the present 
mighty proportions — the magnificent building or, if 
you prefer the image, the noble tree of the Religious 



188 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

Orders so admirable at once in its variety and its- 
unity. 

This feeble off-shoot, springing from the tree of 
life — that is, from Christ Crucified and His bleeding 
Wounds — was destined to become a great tree which 
was to overshadow the whole earth and to perpetuate, 
if we may be permitted so to express ourselves, the 
office of that sacred Tree on which hung the Victim 
of Love upon Mount Calvary ; serving in its turn as 
the Cross upon which innumerable voluntary victims 
should be crucified in the course of ages with Jesus 
Christ our Lord. It was, then, at this memorable 
epoch, when the blood of the Martyrs was yet warm 
in the amphitheatres, that these martyrs of another 
type made their first appearance ; martyrs who were 
appointed to perpetuate the sufferings of their prede- 
cessors under another form, and were therefore to per- 
petuate at the same time the Sacrifice of the Son of 
God, which the Martyrs of the Catacombs had them- 
selves the office to continue. 

From the time of St. Anthony and St. Paul, 
those illustrious pillars of the solitary life, from the 
time of those saintly crowds of Anchorites, who 
peopled the deserts of Egypt and the Thebaid, down to 
the noble religious foundations of the middle ages and 
to the more recent Institutes of modern times, reckon 
if you can the numbers of Religious of both sexes who, 
during the long course of the Christian centuries,, 
have followed in the steps of Jesus Crucified and have 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 189 

reproduced in their own persons, by a life of con- 
tinual labor and mortification, the bleeding sem- 
blance of the Son of God, offering themselves in 
union with His Sacrifice for the salvation of their 
brethren. Then you will begin to understand how 
the special designs of God, the execution of 
which belongs to the general economy of Redemp- 
tion, have assigned their own duty to the Religious 
Orders. For the Son of God has been pleased 
specially to entrust to the members of Religious 
Orders His own title and office of Victim, just as He 
has willed especially to communicate to the Priests 
His title and office of Offerer of Sacrifice. 

In this manner the true Mystic Vine, Jesus 
Christ our Lord, finds in Himself as in the trunk of 
some divine tree the life-giving sap which nourishes 
all the branches that are in union with Him. And 
thus does He reproduce in every one of these living 
branches some features of His heavenly likeness and 
image, some one or other of His divine attributes. 

As Jesus is the perfect image of the Father, so 
should the members of Jesus be perfect images of 
the Son. The divine life which resides in the Vine 
must necessarily be distributed amongst the branches. 
Thus, whilst our Blessed Lord still preserves in Him- 
self the full plenitude of His Divine Life and Office, 
He nevertheless reproduces Himself entirely in His 
members. He distributes to every one of them a 
more or less special participation in His Divine Life, 



190 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

and to a certain chosen number a special participa- 
tion in His own Divine Office. It is necessary to 
make a broad distinction between these two things 
in Jesus Christ.. All Christians, by the mere fact of 
their being members of the Body of Jesus Christ, 
participate more or less in His Divine Life ; but it is 
not true that all Christians participate equally in His 
Divine Office. 

The two great Offices which the Son of God 
came upon earth to perform, and to which all His 
other functions are subordinate, are those of Priest 
and Victim. Priests alone are permitted to have a 
special participation in His title and office of Offerer 
of Sacrifice for the salvation of the world ; Religious 
are more especially called to share in His title and 
office of Victim. It is doubtless true that every 
faithful Christian is a member of that chosen people 
of whom St. Peter speaks as being a royal priest- 
hood — regale sacerdotium — and therefore participates 
to a certain extent in the Priesthood of Jesus Christ. 
But He does not do this by any special title, like 
the Catholic Priest who is not merely united by this 
general bond of connection with the Great High 
Priest of the New Law, but also by a peculiar title 
and bond of union which is no other than the sacer- 
dotal character and all its high prerogatives. It is 
the same with respect to the immolation of Jesus 
Christ, or His office of Victim. Every Christian is, 
or may be, admitted to participate to a certain extent 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 191 

in this function for the benefit of his brethren ; but 
all Christians are not admitted to participate in it 
by the same title as Religious, on whom our Blessed 
Lord has conferred this mission specially, and we 
may even say officially : to perpetuate on earth His 
title and office of Victim for the salvation of the 
world. It is for this end that our Lord has separated 
them from the ordinary mass of mankind, uniting 
them closely to Himself by that peculiar consecra- 
tion which consists in the triple bond of the vows of 
Religion, whereby the Religious becomes exclusively 
consecrated to Jesus Crucified and to the interests of 
His glory. 

We do not mean to deny that our Lord also 
chooses many fervent souls in the world, to be 
especially associated with Him in His title and office 
of Victim for the sins of His people. There have 
always been some of these hidden victims; and per- 
haps at the present day there are more than at any 
former period, whom the Son of God has deigned to 
associate with Himself in His own sacrifice for the 
good of His Church and the nations. But, however 
real and true may be the mission of these holy souls 
united with the Victim of Calvary for the salvation 
of the world, this mission is of a private character; 
and, except in highly privileged cases, it is usually 
restricted in the sphere of its influence. But the 
Religious is, by the very fact of his profession 
(including as it does consecration to a life of per- 
3* 



192 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

petual sacrifice), publicly and officially invested with 
the title and office of Victim and set apart to per- 
petuate the sacrifice of the Incarnate Son of God. 
Their vows and all the observances of their rule 
supply Religious with an endless succession of means 
of the greatest efficacy to accomplish perfectly this 
great mission according to the measure of the grace 
given unto them ; and of this they daily receive an 
abundant supply. 

Even their very dress exhorts them continually 
to self-sacrifice, reminding them unceasingly that 
they no longer belong to this world but to Jesus 
Christ alone. In this spirit did their founders con- 
ceive their holy Institute. One of these saintly men, 
as we see in the abridged formula of the Constitu- 
tions of his Order, formally declared that all his 
Religious should be ' men crucified to the world and 
to whom the world was crucified.' Homines munda 
crucifixos, et quibus mundus sit crucifixus. Is it sur- 
prising that the Religious who faithfully corresponds 
to the grace of his vocation, everything else being 
equal, should be usually more ready than another to 
second the merciful designs of his Lord in that path 
of sacrifice wherein every Religious is bound to take 
up his Cross and follow Christ? 

We may conclude this Chapter by observing 
hat each Religious Institute participates more or 
less largely, according to its especial object and the 
greater or less austerity of its rule, in the expiatory 



THE APOSTLESH1P OF SUFFERING. 193 

mission of the Son of God made Man — in His title 
and office of Victim offered for the salvation of the 
world. Some religious bodies are founded for the 
purpose of exercising the evangelical ministry 
amongst the people, or for the instruction of children 
or care of the sick. Others again devote themselves 
especially to the continual practice of prayer, aus- 
terities, and the severest penance. These several 
Orders find in the discharge of their laborious duties, 
in the faithful performance of their vows and rules, 
an unceasing series of opportunities for sacrifices of 
greater or less extent ; and they are consequently 
enabled to participate more or less fully in the sacri- 
fice of Jesus Christ and in His office of Victim. 
And finally, if we meet with some Institute which 
makes a particular profession and special vow of self- 
immolation and daily suffering for the salvation of 
souls, then the Religious who belong to this Institute, 
if they be faithful to their vocation, have in God's 
sight and in a high degree the title of Victim and a 
large share in the great work of sacrificing themselves 
in union with Jesus Christ for the salvation of all 
men. 

We may then conclude that the vocation of 
Religious of both sexes, to whatever Order they 
belong in the Church, is a truly excellent and divine 
vocation, because it so intimately associates them 
with Jesus Christ in the very exercise of His Bloody 
Sacrifice ; that is to say, in His offering of Himself 



194 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

upon Calvary for the salvation of the whole human 
race. We may conclude that, as the grace of their 
vocation is so distinguished, they should be propor- 
tionately faithful in corresponding to it by leading a 
life of strict purity and humility, a life of mortifica- 
tion and great love of the Cross. The more precious 
the gifts which God bestows upon the soul, the more 
strict will be the account which must one day be 
rendered of them before the Sovereign Judge. 
Amidst the wondrous favors with which we are sur- 
rounded by the infinite liberality of our Heavenly 
Father in the Religious life, let us never forget that 
solemn maxim of St. Gregory, or rather the words of 
our Blessed Lord Himself of which St. Gregory's are 
only an explanation : ' l From him to who?n more is 
given, more shall be required. ' ' Cui plus datum est, 
plus repetetur ab eo. 



CHAPTER V. 

The Apostleship of Suffering in Religious Communities of the 
purely Contemplative Orders. 

The Apostleship of Suffering should be held in 
honor in all religious houses in general. And it 
should be especially esteemed in those which are 
peculiarly and almost exclusively devoted to the 
exercises of prayer and suffering for the glory of God 
and the salvation of souls. We allude more par- 
ticularly to those religious bodies which are devoted 
by their vows to the contemplative life, such as 
Trappists, Carmelites, Poor Clares, the nuns of the 
Agonizing Heart of Jesus, etc. 

But let us begin nearer the fountain-head, and 
explain the immense services which these religious 
bodies are called upon to render to the Church and 
to souls by their prayers and sacrifices united to the 
sufferings and prayers of Jesus Christ. 

The spirit of modern times is a spirit opposed 
to everything that is Catholic and supernatural, or 
divine ; and it pursues all the Religious Orders with 
hatred and contempt. But it is especially opposed 
to those which devote themselves to the exercises of 
the contemplative life. It strives to get rid of them 
at any cost, considering them a useless and unhealthy 
growth in the social body. Alas! even amongst 
Catholics we may meet with some who are possessed 

195 



196 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

with these fatal prejudices, and who presume to say : 
" What is the use of these Religious Orders? and, 
above all, what can possibly be the good of these 
cloisters, where they shut themselves up to lead a 
useless life at a time when every arm should be free 
for action, when so many sick people require to be 
nursed, so many poor to be relieved, so many bad 
Christians to be converted, so many infidels to be 
brought to a knowledge of the truth?" 

Ah ! it is doubtless true, there is much to be 
done in the world for the bodies and souls of men, 
far more probably than you are aware of. But is not 
this an additional reason why no possible means 
should be left untried by which we may bring some 
help to the innumerable necessities of the age in 
which we live, when souls are being lost on every 
side and the powers of evil are leading the people 
astray with such frightful ease ? And who (unless, 
indeed, they are prepared to renounce the very first 
principles of the Fai'th) will dare to dispute the fact 
that prayer and sacrifice are among the most power- 
ful means which God has bestowed upon His creatures 
to lead erring souls to return to Him ? Our Divine 
Redeemer never once separated these two things. 
He did not spend His whole life in preaching ; but 
He never interrupted His exercise of prayer and 
sacrifice for the salvation of the human race. Always 
a Suppliant, He realized in His own Person the pre- 
cept which fell from His Divine Lips : "We ought 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 19/ 

always to pray, and not to faint. ' ' Oportet semper 
orare, et non deficere. Ever a Victim, He fulfilled 
the type of the perpetual sacrifice in use amongst the 
Hebrews, which was a symbol of that perpetual holo- 
caust He was Himself to offer to the Father for our 
Redemption. 

The mortal life of Jesus Christ upon earth was, 
as we have already observed with the pious author of 
the Imitation , "a perpetual Cross and Martyrdom.'''' 
St. Augustine expresses the same idea in other 
words, when he says: "Jesus Christ did not wait 
until the last few days of His life to commence the 
work of reparation for our sins. He began it in 
His very cradle." And the reason which the holy 
Doctor assigns for this conduct of our Lord is in 
itself a renewed testimony in favor of the Apostle- 
ship of Suffering. "It was not fitting," he writes, 
" that the Saviour of the World should one moment 
remain in the world without performing the duties 
of His office." On His side, the Apostle Paul 
informs us that it was necessary that the Son of God 
should suffer, in order to merit the name of Saviour 
and save His people from their sins. Therefore, the 
same Apostle proceeds, when Jesus Christ came into 
the world, He offered Himself in sacrifice, saying : 
" Father, since the blood of goats and bulls hath no 
power to satisfy Thy justice, behold Me, sacrifice 
Me." Ecce venio. 

Thus, out of the three-and-thirty years of His 



198 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

mortal life, our Blessed Lord devoted three to the 
preaching of His Gospel ; and thirty-three, that is to 
say, His whole life, to prayer and suffering for our 
salvation. Will any one dare to say that He could 
have employed those thirty-three years better in the 
exercises of the active life, considering that there 
were then, as now, poor to relieve, slaves to be set 
free, heathens without number to convert ? 

He who was wise with a wisdom not of the 
pretended wise men of the world, judged it fit 
and better to act otherwise, and so the world was 
saved. 

After His death, our Divine Redeemer remains 
faithful to His original plan. He will not make the 
application of the merits of His Precious Blood to 
His people by any other method than that which He 
employed for their Redemption. He has entrusted 
His Church with the twofold mission of perpetuating 
His Divine Apostleship, and of gathering in its 
fruits ; and thus it has become necessary that the 
Church should reproduce, in her own proportion, 
that triple element which was employed by Him 
in the work of our regeneration ; namely, Prayer, 
Teaching, and Blood- she doling. And the Church 
faithfully follows the example of her Divine Author. 
While she devotes herself with indefatigable perse- 
verance to the instruction of the people by the 
preaching of the Gospel, she still lays the greatest 
stress upon Prayer and Sacrifice for procuring the 



THE AP0STLESH1P OF SUFFERING. 199 

salvation of souls. As far as she can, she will 
accomplish the precept of continual Prayer and 
perpetual Sacrifice by the daily offering of the Holy 
Sacrifice of the Mass, which is at once a holocaust 
and a prayer daily presented to God by thousands 
of Priests, in uninterrupted succession. For at all 
hours of the day and night, in thousands of places 
throughout the world, Altars are prepared for Mass 
and before these Altars Priests are standing ; and 
upon them, in priestly hands, the Sacred Victim is 
praying and sacrificing Himself even as on the Cross, 
suffering *a mystic death, shedding upon His people 
the Blood which cries more loudly than the blood of 
Abel. And observe that, as Jesus Christ, the Divine 
Head of the Church, requires His members — that is, 
all Christians — to perpetuate with Him His life of 
supplication by uniting themselves to His Eucharistic 
prayer ; so does He also require these same Christ- 
ians to perpetuate His life of suffering, and conse- 
quently His Sacrifice, by uniting their sufferings to 
His own and filling them with the life-giving power 
■of His Eucharistic Sacrifice. And it is thus that 
the Son of God gives daily and hourly and every 
moment — to His Church and to each one of her 
members — the call to continual prayer and to con- 
tinual sacrifice ; associating in His own Prayer and 
Sacrifice both His ministers and His people. 

And therefore it is that, when the Catholic 
Priest ascends the Altar for the purpose of offer- 



200 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

ing to God the Father the Blood and Prayer of the 
Lamb of God, before offering the Sacred Victim he 
must pray and after he has made the oblation he 
must not cease to pray ; and the faithful who are 
present at the Holy Sacrifice must in their turn pray 
with the Priest, who prays in and through Jesus 
Christ. So that Holy Mass is at once both the great 
Sacrifice and the great Prayer of Jesus Christ and of 
His Church — in Him and through Him — and of His 
Priests and the faithful, the children of His Church. 
We need not mention the various other acts of public 
and private worship, which are a species of extension 
of the Eucharistic prayer, to which they all belong 
as to a common centre, and which, even when depart- 
ing from it, ever remain in union with it as the rays 
of light go forth from the sun. 

What conclusions must we then draw from this 
consideration ? First, that in the designs of Christ 
and His Church prayer enters, and must ever enter, 
largely into the work of a Christian's regeneration, 
as well as into the maintenance and development of 
his supernatural life. Secondly, that those Religious 
bodies which are especially consecrated to prayer 
and devote to it a considerable portion of the hours 
of every day, are institutions perfectly in harmony 
with the great plan of our regeneration as traced out 
and realized by Jesus Christ Himself. Thirdly, that 
we may hope as much for the good of the Church 
and the salvation of souls from these Institutes whose 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 201 

especial profession is prayer, as from those which 
make a particular profession of works. 

To this consideration succeeds another, which 
is no less worthy of- our attention. It is that our 
Blessed Lord requires His members, not only to 
perpetuate His Prayer throughout all the ages of the 
world, by praying in their turn with Him ; but also 
to continue, and, according to St. Paul, to fill up, 
His Passion by actually suffering with Him. Thus, 
it is not sufficient that the faithful take part in the 
sufferings of Jesus Christ in the manner we have just 
described, namely, by their presence during the 
Unbloody Sacrifice of the Most Holy Eucharist, by 
their union with the ends of this Sacrifice and by 
their application of its virtue to themselves. If they 
confine themselves t<3 this kind of participation in 
His sufferings, can they venture to say that they 
perpetuate in their own persons, by their own real 
and actual sufferings, the Passion of the Son of God ? 
It is, nevertheless, by their own personal sufferings 
endured in union with Jesus Christ that the Bloody 
Sacrifice of Calvary must be continued and com- 
pleted by them. 

Now we would ask, is not our Divine Master's 
intention of perpetuating His life of suffering in His 
members continually frustrated and neglected in a 
great majority of cases, especially when it becomes 
a question of suffering for the salvation of others? 
Set aside the number, so sadly great, of Christians 



202 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

who are in mortal sin — in whom our Lord in no way- 
perpetuates His Sacrifice because, while they remain 
in this state, they are no longer living members of 
His Body. Set aside also the great mass of Christ- 
ians who, though not actually in a state of mortal 
sin, accept their sufferings only because it is not in 
their power to escape from them, that is, under 
constraint, and without any supernatural intention. 
And whom have we now remaining ? 

Two classes of the faithful, living members of 
Jesus Christ, who perpetuate, at least for their own 
sake, the Sacrifice of their Divine Head. 

The first class is composed of Christians who 
are animated with a true spirit of faith. Whether in 
the world or in Religion, they accept the sufferings 
which are laid upon them by God in a spirit of 
patient resignation. But they do not attain to the 
more generous feelings of those saintly and fervent 
souls who suffer, not with submission only, but with 
self-devotion, in order to give pleasure to God and 
to His beloved Son Jesus. It is quite evident that, 
although our Blessed Lord does perpetuate His Sacri- 
fice in this class of Christians, He does it in a very 
imperfect manner. For they never think of turning 
their sufferings to the good of their fellow-creatures, 
by enduring them with an apostolic intention to 
obtain for others the graces of conversion and 
salvation. 

The second class embraces those fervent Christ- 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 203 

ians who, in the world or in Religion, are burning 
with the fire of Divine Love. So far from content- 
ing themselves with suffering in a simple spirit of 
resignation and for their own benefit, they rise up 
to the purest spirit of love and self-devotedness, 
esteeming themselves happy in being permitted with 
the Apostles to suffer humiliation for the Holy 
Name of Jesus and thus win souls to Him. Such a 
one was St. Paul, that ardent disciple of the Cross 
who exclaimed with an impulse of the Divine Love 
which inflamed his ardent soul — " God forbid that I 
should glory, save in the Cross of our Lord Jesus 
Christ' 1 '' — Absit mihi gloriari nisi in cruce Domini 
nostri Jesu Christi — St. Paul, who would have will- 
ingly consented to save his brethren by becoming 
anathema in their stead — Cupiebam anathema esse a 
fratribus meis. Such were the Saints in all ages. 
They trod in the footsteps of the great Apostle, and 
sighed eagerly to share in the Cross and humiliation 
of their Lord. Such are still to be found amongst 
the few generous souls animated with the noble 
sentiments which in all ages have inspired the true 
friends of God. They count it all joy to endure 
suffering and humiliation with Jesus and for Jesus, 
esteeming themselves happy if, at this price, they 
can gain Him souls. 

The pious reader will agree with us that the 
proportion of these fervent souls is very small. How 
then will the Lord Jesus fill up this void and per- 



'204 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

petuate His Bloody Sacrifice worthily, as He designs? 
He will do so in the following manner. He will 
separate from the common mass of Christians two 
classes of the faithful, His living members, and will 
make them in a peculiar manner the perpetuators 
of His Sacrifice ; and by these two classes I mean 
Priests and Religious who, by the very fact of their 
sacerdotal character or their religious profession, are 
placed under an especial obligation to persevere in 
a life of greater sanctity, mortification, and retire- 
ment from all worldly pleasures. Thus too they 
enjoy the most favorable conditions for perpetuating 
suitably our Blessed Lord's life of suffering and 
immolation. Nevertheless, it is upon Religious that 
this mission more especially devolves — upon those 
Religious in particular who are devoted, by their 
rule and Institute, to a life of penance and self- 
immolation. 

We need not here repeat what has been said in 
a preceding Chapter with respect to the Apostle- 
ship of Suffering amongst Priests, and the powerful 
motives they have for exercising it. We shall con- 
tent ourselves with pointing out the difference which 
exists in this respect between Priests and Religious. 
It evidently proves that to these last is more directly 
and officially entrusted the great mission of perpetu- 
ating in their own persons the Bloody Sacrifice 
offered by the Lamb of God for the salvation of 
man, just as to the Priests of the Church has been 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 205 

confided the mission of perpetuating His Unbloody 
Sacrifice upon the Eucharistic Altar. 

The first and essential office of the sacer- 
dotal order is that of Sacrificing Priests. It is only 
because of this title that the Priest is more closely 
bound than any other Christian to associate himself 
with the sufferings and Bloody Sacrifice of our Lord 
Jesus Christ by a life of peculiar sanctity and morti- 
fication. But he is not bound to this in the same 
degree as the Religious. And therefore a Priest's 
life is not subject, like that of a Religious, to the 
various observances, privations, penances, and con- 
tinual austerities, which convert the life of a Relig- 
ious into a perpetual round of self-sacrifice. The 
Priest, unlike the Religious, has taken no vow of 
poverty ; he is consequently permitted to enjoy his 
own possessions and to allow himself certain comforts 
and pleasures which are forbidden to the Religious, 
provided that he does not pass beyond the bounds 
set by his duty and his dignity. The Priest has 
promised obedience to his Bishop ; but this is a 
promise of very simple meaning and easy execution, 
compared to the Vow of Obedience pronounced by 
the Religious, which binds him to perpetual abnega- 
tion of his own will in what are often most difficult 
acts. * 

It is needless to pursue the comparison further. 
We have said quite enough to show that the Priest, 
by the very nature of his office and the sacred char- 



206 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

acter which he bears, is bound to perpetuate in his 
own person, in a more perfect manner than the rest 
of the faithful, the suffering life of our Saviour ; and 
that the Religious is bound, in virtue of his religious 
profession, to perpetuate the same life of suffering 
still more perfectly than the Priest. On the Relig- 
ious has the title and office of Victim been conferred 
in an official and solemn manner — as upon the 
Priest, in virtue of holy Ordination, has been offi- 
cially and solemnly conferred the title and office 
of Sacrificing Priest. 

Nevertheless, we must not fail to place in the 
first ranks amongst those Religious to whom the 
office of victim has been especially confided the 
members of the more severe Religious Orders, 
particularly those which are specially destined to 
the exercises of prayer and self-sacrifice. 

In the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ, just as in 
the natural body of man, there exists a double move- 
ment, a double expression of life : one being visible 
and exterior, the other interior and hidden. The 
object of both is the same ; namely, to cause the 
Blood of the Redeemer, and consequently His 
Divine life, to circulate throughout the whole body 
of the Church. Both have their principle of motion 
in the Sacred Heart of Jesus, whence they spring 
and flow forth as a majestic river from its fountain- 
head. Two channels are closely united to that 
sacred source, in which the living waters of grace 



# 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 207 

are contained. One of these is visible; it is the 
Sacerdotal body, or the members of the Priesthood. 
They are entrusted by Jesus Christ with the charge 
of His doctrine and the merits of His Most Precious 
Blood, receiving at the same time authority and 
mission to transmit the precious charge to mankind 
by the preaching of the Word of God and the 
administration of the Sacraments. The other is 
invisible ; it consists of the holy souls to whom 
Jesus is closely united by love and sorrow. Of these 
He makes use as so many instruments of His mercy 
— especially in those cases in which, for various 
reasons, the ordinary ministry of Priests is difficult 
or unattainable. For the office of these apostles 
of love and suffering consists principally in assisting 
the ministry of the Priest and supplying, to a certain 
extent, its place when it is unavoidably absent ; that 
is to say, when for any reason whatever it cannot be 
exercised. 

The Blessed Virgin Mary is the greatest of these 
Apostles of Suffering. To such a height of dignity 
had she attained that she even deserved the title of 
Queen of Apostles, Regina Apostoloruni, Ah ! was 
not this because she not only assisted in the forma- 
tion of the new-born Church by her example and 
advice, but also offered herself as a sacrifice for 
souls? With ardent love, daily did she offer for 
them upon the altar of her Immaculate Heart a 
spotless victim; that is to say, the oblation of her 
4 



208 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

fervent prayers, her saintly labors, her tears, her 
maternal grief — in one word, the offering of her 
blood and life in union with her Divine Son Jesus. 
Is it surprising that by these means she should have 
co-operated in the salvation and perfection of many 
souls ? 

Now we do not hesitate to assert that religious 
persons of either sex who devote themselves to the 
exercises of the contemplative life, in an Order which 
is especially dedicated to the continual practice of 
suffering and prayer, largely realize the secret mission 
which was confided to the Mother of God — that 
interior Apostleship which is so intimately connected 
with the exterior Apostleship exercised by Priests. 
It is from amongst their ranks that our Blessed Lord 
delights to choose those special victims of whom we 
are shortly to speak ; or rather each one amongst 
them is one of these chosen victims. 

The illustrious foundress of the Carmelites, the 
Seraphic Teresa, understood the life of sacrifice, to 
which she had devoted herself, precisely in this 
manner. It was she who observed to her daughters, 
at sight of the evils laying waste the Church: "O 
my daughters in Jesus Christ, help me in beseeching 
our Blessed Lord to vouchsafe a remedy for these 
fearful evils ! It is for this purpose I have gathered 
you together in this house ; this is the object of our 
vocation ; this is what we ought, without ceasing, to 
ask of God." It was to this end and the salvation 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 209 

of souls, that she desired them to direct all their 
austerities, fastings, watchings — in a word, their 
whole life of self-immolation. And to encourage 
them in this difficult path, she went before them in 
the way and devoted herself to every kind of self- 
sacrifice, repeating the words which she had chosen 
for her motto: "To suffer or to die." Pati aut 
mori. 



CHAPTER VI. 

Practical Considerations drawn from the two preceding 

Chapters. 

We have now clearly established the reality 
of what we may call the expiatory mission of the 
Religious Orders — above all, of those which make 
it their special profession to pray and to suffer for 
the salvation of souls. From these considerations, 
which are peculiarly appropriate to our own times, 
we proceed to draw the following conclusions. 

First Conclusion. — The Son of God has saved 
the world by the Cross, and desires to employ the 
same means for making application of the virtue of 
the Cross to men : it follows that, just in proportion 
to the number of Christians who are found in any 
*age of the world united by suffering to the suffer- 
ings of Jesus in order to further the salvation of 
their brethren, so will be the solid hope of salvation 
for that age. 

Now we have already proved that Religious 
have received from God the special mission of per- 
petuating in their own persons the sufferings and 
Passion of Jesus Christ. Therefore, the more Relig- 
ious there are, in any age, charged with this mission 
and faithful in its accomplishment, the greater will 
be the hope of salvation for that generation. More- 
210 i 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 211 

over, these Religious share more perfectly in the 
expiatory mission of the Son of God in proportion 
to the austerity of the Orders to which they belong — 
especially if those Orders make it their peculiar pro- 
fession to pray and to suffer for the salvation of souls. 
It follows that the more we find of such faithful 
Religious in any given age and kingdom, the greater 
hope we may reasonably entertain of the salvation of 
that kingdom or generation, and the more confi- 
dently may the Church expect an approaching 
triumph and an abundance of spiritual blessings. 
Second. — In proportion as any Catholic nation 
has provoked the wrath of God by the crimes of its 
children, so much the more necessary and urgent is 
the duty of that nation to multiply in its bosom such 
asylums of prayer and penance ; by which we mean 
those Religious Communities where particular profes- 
sion is made of praying and suffering. For the 
same reason, the more a country is sullied by the 
vices of its inhabitants, the more a diocese has of 
irreligious persons, bad Christians, anti-Catholic 
associations, so much the more reason is there to 
labor to restore a healthful atmosphere to that 
country or diocese by introducing into it these 
health-giving plants, sprung from the Blood of 
Jesus, which shed so sweet an odor of life and purity 
around them. There, above all places, is it of 
importance to establish those institutions to which 
certain Bishops, not long since, very aptly gave the 



212 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

name of lightning conductors ; for they avert from the 
guilty heads of sinners the thunderbolts of Divine 
justice ready to overwhelm them. 

In proof of this, we may quote the following 
judicious remark from a Catholic journal respecting 
the salutary influence of Convents and other Relig- 
ious Institutions in Germany : " It is these souls," it 
says, referring to Religious, "who have saved by 
their supplications and works of mercy States led by 
their impious masters to the very brink of ruin. 
They have averted the chastisement of God from 
cities that had incurred the Divine wrath. Voluntary 
holocausts, they have made reparation by their pri- 
vations and austerities for the evil-doings of those 
very persons who deride and despise them. They 
have prayed and suffered and labored for the benefit 
of a people regardless of its duty; and the result 
demonstrates the truth of those words of the Apostle, 
Caritas omnia sperat, 'Charity hopeth all things.'' 
And we may add that in our days, in Germany, it 
has obtained all things. The writer alludes to that 
great movement toward Catholicism which has 
taken place in Germany, under the influence of the 
Religious communities. We might make the same 
observation with reference to the not less remarkable 
movement which is going on in England, and 
which yearly produces so many conversions to the 
Catholic Faith. And in France also, amid the 
many causes of scandal which unhappily arise, 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 213 

what help do we not receive from those Religious Insti- 
tutions which the country contains in such numbers ! 
Happy would the country be if it understood the 
truth, that these institutions are and ever will be an 
unfailing source of health and prosperity to the 
land ! 

Third. — We must not be surprised when we see 
impious persons of our own days, like those in former 
times, attack Religious Congregations with the 
bitterest aversion, and strive by every possible means 
to bring them into discredit, to hinder the full 
development of their undertakings, and even, if it 
lay in their power, to exterminate them altogether. 
But we cannot help feeling great astonishment when 
we hear certain Catholics, who in this particular are 
either very blind or very ill-intentioned, echo these 
unjust and hateful declamations. Such conduct 
implies either a deplorable weakening of their sense 
of the supernatural, or a great ignorance of the 
designs of Providence respecting the general econ- 
omy of the work of Redemption ; or else, which is 
still more to be lamented, a spirit of ill-will that 
is almost inconceivable, because directed against 
God more than against man. It opposes a serious 
obstacle to the salvation of souls for whom our Lord 
Jesus Christ has shed all His Blood. 

It is impossible that any one should doubt — 
unless he voluntarily closes his eyes to the plain 
evidence of facts — that the various Religious bodies, 



214 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

in spite of the infirmities which are inherent in 
human nature, have always rendered, and still con- 
. tinue to render, very great services to the Church. 
How does it then happen that many persons, who are 
certainly far from being the enemies of the Son of 
God, are nevertheless numbered in the ranks of the 
adversaries of these faithful and devoted servants of 
His ? And this at a time when the work begun by 
our Blessed Lord is surrounded by so many enemies, 
and the precious souls whom He redeemed with His 
own Blood are exposed to so many dangers, to such 
imminent risk of falling into eternal perdition ! 

Alas ! these imprudent Christians impede the 
application of the Blood of Christ to the souls of 
men by His chosen instruments. Do not they fear 
lest it fall back upon them as a curse at the last 
great day, when every man shall receive the reward 
of the good in which he has had a share, or the 
chastisement of the evil that he has caused ? 

Fourth. — It follows that Priests, who have the 
direction of consciences, far from discouraging such 
persons as may confide to them their desire of 
embracing the Religious Life, should on the con- 
trary encourage this inclination, provided that after 
careful examination they are satisfied the vocation 
comes from God. Let them even, if they can, give 
help in carrying out the design. Let them be 
assured that in this manner they will render a signal 
service, not only to the souls whom our Lord calls 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 215 

to solitude, but also to the whole Catholic Church. 
For these persons, sanctified in the cloister or 
elsewhere, would give to the Church the powerful 
support of their prayers, austerities, sufferings, and 
unwearied devotedness. 

Never was it more timely and necessary than in 
the present day to favor this holy impulse of souls 
moved by the Holy Spirit to devote themselves to 
a life of prayer and sacrifice for the salvation of 
their brethren. Is not the generation in which we 
live a cold and indifferent generation, unwilling 
either to suffer or to pray? Is it not urgently 
necessary, if we hope to save it from sinking still 
deeper into the abyss of darkness and corruption, 
that pure and ardent souls should stand between it 
and God by their prayers, to avert the punishment 
with which it is threatened and to obtain for it 
mercy and pardon? Yes, this need of prayer and 
expiation is daily felt more deeply. It is our duty, 
as directors of consciences, to second to the utmost 
of our power this impulse of the Holy Spirit. 

But let us take care not to substitute, under 
any pretext whatsoever, our own inclination for 
the movement of the Holy Spirit. This sometimes 
happens when a Director is animated by human 
motives, or even by the prejudices of the age in 
which he lives. Thus he may easily give a direction 
to the mind of his penitent which is not in accord- 
ance with the operations of Divine grace upon the 
4* 



216 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

soul. In this way a Director may oppose the designs 
of Providence with regard to a soul, thus doing a 
great injury to the individual, and also to many 
others who might have been greatly assisted by 
that person in the place which God had designed. 
Directors of this kind should be said to misdirect 
rather than direct, to lead astray rather than spiritu- 
ally guide the consciences of those under their 
charge. The responsibility which they assume by 
a line of conduct so completely opposed to the 
guidance of the Holy Spirit, is certainly very ill- 
calculated to reassure their minds with respect to the 
account which they must one day render to God of 
the souls He has placed under their care. 

To a certain extent we apply what we have said 
to those fathers and mothers of families who oppose, 
without good reason, the ecclesiastical or religious 
vocation of their children. Through an inordinate 
affection, which is often a cloak for pure selfishness, 
they place an insurmountable barrier between them 
and the Religious Life. Let such be assured that by 
acting in this manner they are guilty of a very great 
injustice both toward God and their children ; and 
that they will one day be called upon to render a 
strict account of their conduct to the Sovereign 
Judge. I pass over the domestic chastisements and 
troubles which conduct so unworthy of a Christian 
is sure to bring, even in this life, upon themselves 
and their families. 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 217 

Fifth. — It follows that members of Religious 
Orders should consider themselves victims offered 
in sacrifice to God the Father, in union with His 
Divine Son suffering and dying for the salvation 
of the world. Just in proportion as they conform 
themselves to the life of Jesus Crucified, will they 
reach the more perfectly the sublime end of their 
vocation. In such times as these, when the spirit of 
independence and unbridled love of material pleasure 
are eating like a cancer into the very heart of modern 
society, it is more necessary than ever, in order to 
oppose some counterpoise to the prevailing evil, 
that the members of Religious communities should 
become thoroughly imbued with this spirit of self- 
sacrifice, by the practice of profound humility, per- 
fect obedience, and thorough mortification. It is 
our firm conviction that one of the points upon 
which all the Superiors of Religious communities 
are most bound to insist in our day and which they 
should by every means instil into the mind of their 
subjects, is the spirit of sacrifice, the love of the Cross, 
in union with Jesus Crucified and for the salvation 
of souls redeemed at the price of His most precious 
Blood, of which so many, alas ! are daily sinking 
into perdition. 

Sixth. — Hence, all those Religious whose voca- 
tion leads them to active ministry, such as preach- 
ing, instructing the young, visiting the poor and 
sick, ought to apply themselves so much the more 



218 THE APOSTLESHIPOF SUFFERING. 

earnestly to this life of self-sacrifice as they are more 
exposed to lose it on account of the distractions 
inseparable from their employments. 

In fact, every Religious, whatever the nature of 
his occupation may be, is, as we have before 
observed, by the very fact of his religious profession 
officially set aside and deputed to perpetuate the 
sacrifice of Jesus Christ upon earth by becoming 
a victim, associated with that Divine Victim Who 
offered Himself on Calvary for the sins of the world. 
And the founders of these Orders have conceived 
their Rules in no other spirit than this. One of them, 
in particular, inserted in the formula of the religious 
vows which are taken by his children the word holo- 
caust, which he implores our Lord graciously to 
accept in an odor of sweetness. Ut hoc holocaustum 
in odorem suavitatis admiitere digneris. Here is the 
complete idea of sacrifice, expressed with so much 
clearness and precision that it is quite impossible to 
mistake its meaning. 

Seventh. — Finally, Religious belonging to 
austere Orders in which profession is more espe- 
cially made of praying and suffering for the salvation 
of souls, ought to esteem themselves very happy and 
highly honored in being thus called to follow Jesus 
Christ more closely in the royal road of the Cross ; 
to perpetuate in an especial manner His life of prayer 
and immolation \ to be more closely associated than 
any others in His title and divine office of Victim 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 219 

slain for the salvation of the world. You may well 
rejoice and encourage yourselves in those trials 
which are inseparable from the life of self-sacrifice, 
by reflecting that there is nothing in the whole world 
which our Heavenly Father contemplates with so 
much satisfaction as the living images of His Cruci- 
fied Son. 

And are you not of the number, are you not in 
a peculiar manner the suffering members of Jesus 
Christ ? Your poverty, your nakedness, your priva- 
tions, fasts, and austerities, your vigils and daily and 
nightly prayers, your humiliations and obedience, do 
not these things liken each one of you, as long as 
you are faithful to your rule, to Jesus Crucified ? 
Take courage, then, generous victims ; you have 
" chosen the better part, which shall not be taken away 
from you." Your place is prepared for you in 
heaven amongst the princes of heavenly glory : Ut 
collocet eum cum principibus, cum principibus populi 
sui. To you whom the world curses as a barren 
field, or as a withered branch which is good for 
nothing but to be cast into the fire, to you the gift of 
fruitfulness is promised, even the fruitfulness of 
souls ; a gift a thousand times more precious than 
that which perpetuates the race of the Old Adam 
upon earth. For by your fervent prayers, your 
daily and hourly sacrifices, your ardent charity, your 
intimate union with the chaste Spouse of souls, you 
will multiply the family of the Second Adam, even 



220 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

our Blessed Lord Jesus Christ. You will rejoice His 
Spouse the holy Church, and people Heaven with 
the elect. 

Love, then, these sacred cloisters, these blessed 
solitudes, where, as of old, our Lord Jesus still 
delights to come to seek shelter from the tumults 
of the world. Hide yourselves with Him in this 
mysterious desert ; unite your prayer with His 
prayer, your fasts with His fasts, your combats with 
His combats ; above all unite your heart most closely 
to His Divine Heart, Which asks for nothing but to 
be loved in return for the immense love which He 
bears toward us. Yes, let us love with our whole 
hearts the loving Heart of Jesus. Let It become, 
with God the Father and the Holy Ghost, the sole 
Object of our adoration, praise, and love, in time 
and in eternity. After Jesus, let Mary His august 
Mother be the chief object of our veneration and of 
our most tender and devoted love in heaven and on 
earth. Amen. 



CHAPTER VII. 

Of Special Victims. 

Jesus Christ is the Divine Head of His Mystical 
Body the Church ; and still in a way He prolongs 
and perpetuates His personal existence in every one 
of His members under some one of the characteristic 
traits of His life on earth. In the ordinary Christ- 
ian, He continues His private, or as we may say, 
His domestic life at Nazareth. In the Priest, He 
continues His public career of preaching, and His 
peculiar sacrificial office. In the Religious, He 
continues His life and office as Victim. 

From Himself as the Divine Tree, the sacred 
Vine, the life of Christ is communicated as a fertil- 
izing stream through three great branches, closely 
united together. These, branching out in their 
turn, convey the divine life of Christ to the last 
and least offshoot of that mysterious tree. The first 
branch is the life of Christ continued in the faithful ; 
.it is the Christian life : vita Christiana. The second 
is the life of Christ as a Doctor and a Priest, 
continued in Priests ; this is the sacerdotal life : vita 
sacerdotalis. The third branch is the life of Christ 
as an obedient and crucified Victim, continued 
in the Religious ; this is the Religious life : vita 
religiosa. 

The Son of God came down from heaven to 

221 



222 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

earth that He might give us divine life, and give it 
to us more abundantly. In His own words : Ut 
vitam habeant et abundantius habeant. And truly, 
since His appearance upon earth, the divine life of 
Christ overflows into the bosom of successive gener- 
ations of Christians, producing abundant fruits of 
virtue and holiness unto everlasting life. Praise 
and thanksgiving be rendered to our sweet and 
loving Saviour ! 

We may add, in order to complete this instruc- 
tion, that whilst for purposes of His own God main- 
tains that triple distinction of which we have just 
been speaking, He also frequently makes choice of 
special victi?ns, gathered from amongst all ranks of 
Christian society. He communicates to them, for 
the salvation of their brethren, a large share in the 
sufferings of His Divine Son, and in the title and 
office of Victim borne by that Son. 

In glancing over the annals of the Church, it 
will be easy to meet with many instances in proof 
of this assertion. God has at all times made choice 
of fervent souls to make of them victims well-pleas- 
ing in His eyes. On them He delights to pour out 
those vials of His wrath which were justly due to 
some city or nation, or even to His Church herself 
on account of the unfaithfulness of her children. In 
this manner He formerly let loose upon the innocent 
Victim of Calvary, His own well-beloved Son, the 
chastisements due to the guilty race of man. It would 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 223 

be impossible to describe the tender affection, the 
love of preference, felt by God the Father for those 
souls to whom He imparts such special features of 
resemblance to Jesus Crucified. There is no miracle 
or grace that He is not ready to grant in answer to 
their prayers, especially when they present their 
petitions to Him in union with the tears, the blood, 
and the agony of Jesus, added to their own sufferings 
and tears. 

It is more especially in times of great social 
and religious disturbance that our Lord in His mercy 
is accustomed to raise up these hidden victims. 
Their latent action, like that of grace in our souls, 
joins in the work of God's mercy in a most vital 
and intimate manner. We may compare the impor- 
tant function which these holy souls accomplish in 
the living members of the Mystical Body of Christ 
to those vital organs in the feuman frame which are 
connected with the heart, from which they transmit 
the blood which is the life of the body to the 
remotest members. We will not say that these holy 
souls are like a kind of living sacrament, by which 
Jesus Christ effects a work of divine life in His 
members; but we do declare that they are His 
instruments — channels directly united by suffering 
and love to the Fountain of that Divine Life. From 
the Sacred Heart of Jesus they obtain His life for 
all those of His members whom He destines to profit 
by their means. 



224 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

Hence it appears that in proportion as a soul is 
closely united by suffering and love to the Fountain 
of Life which is Jesus Christ, in the same proportion 
is it in a position to draw more largely from that 
overflowing fount of Divine Life for itself and for 
others. And it becomes peculiarly apt to perpetuate 
the Sacrifice of Jesus upon earth, to be associated in 
His title and office of Victim for the salvation of 
men. Moreover, it has in consequence freedom of 
access to God and power over the Sacred Heart of 
His Son, to obtain abundant graces for the just and 
for sinners, for the Church, for the Sovereign Pontiff, 
for nations, dioceses, parishes, families, for the con- 
version of infidels, — in short, for all the needs of the 
Church and of the whole human race. 

At the head of these hidden victims appears 
Mary, the Mother of Jesus and our Mother, in whom 
love and sorrow unite and twine together like flowers 
blooming amidst thorns, forming a mystic unity 
under the double title and glory of " Mother of fair 
love," Mater pulchrae dilectionis, and "Queen of 
Martyrs," Regina Martyrum. Mary suffered by 
compassion all the pain and sorrow of Jesus. By her 
love she corresponded perfectly to His love, so that 
Mary's union with Jesus by love and sorrow was 
perfect and wrought in fullest measure. We cannot, 
then, be surprised at finding her influence over the 
Heart of her Son so great that she has drawn from It 
streams of divine life for all mankind, insomuch that 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 225 

all the graces which are poured forth from the Sacred 
Heart of Jesus into the Heart of Mary come finally 
to us through her Virginal Heart, as through a pure 
and fertilizing channel. 

The office of this great and noble victim — of 
her who is only second to the Divine Victim of 
Calvary — is thus an operation not only efficacious, 
but universal ; for it extends to every Christian, to all 
men, all places, and all times. Yes, it is to Mary, 
Mother of sorrow and of love, that the whole race of 
man is indebted, after Jesus, for its salvation. We 
cannot then wonder to find her placed at the head of 
that sacred band of special victims of whom we are 
now speaking. This is perhaps the cause of that par- 
ticular attraction which leads many people to choose 
Our Lady of Sorrows and her compassionate Heart 
as the special object of their devotion. 

The office of St. Joseph cannot be separated 
from that of Mary his august spouse. We must not 
separate him from her in the share she had of the 
sufferings of Jesus her Divine Son. St. Joseph was 
great among these voluntary victims, but he was a 
hidden victim. God the Father associated him, by 
a work of co-operation, with the great work of the 
Redemption and regeneration of the human race. 
How would it be possible for him not to have had a 
share in the chief means of atonement and redemp- 
tion ? But this was suffering, the Cross, the volun- 
tary sacrifice of the Man-God. 



226 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

Next to Mary and St. Joseph, St. John the 
Evangelist occupies the first rank in this band of 
generous souls. The love shown by Jesus to this 
disciple, beloved of His Heart, was so tender, so 
ardent, so intimate, that He could not fail to bestow 
upon him the special grace of a perfect resemblance 
to Himself. It is the characteristic of affection, 
when carried to a high degree, to aim unweariedly at 
reproducing the living image or even the very life itself 
of the person who loves in the object of his love. 
How could Jesus, Who loved St. John so tenderly, 
fail to engrave in him the very image of His own 
crucified life ? How could He refuse him the gift 
which He accords to His most beloved friends as a 
pledge of His affection, namely, an abundant share 
in the chalice of His Agony, and the sufferings of His 
Passion ? As St. John was the beloved disciple of 
Jesus, so he was Mary's favorite child ; and for long 
years he was the trusted depositary of all the sorrows 
of her most saintly soul. Thus he could not have 
failed to participate in her martyrdom of love and 
grief with his own soul so loving and sensitive. 
Yes, we believe that St. John the Evangelist was one 
of those special victims whom God the Father is 
pleased to associate intimately in the sufferings, and 
especially in the interior sufferings, of His beloved 
Son. In the life of the Blessed Angela di Foligno 
we find the following passage, which bears on our 
subject. "I had prayed," says the Saint, "to the 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. , 227 

Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God, and to St. 
John the Evangelist, that by the intense grief which 
pierced through their souls in beholding the Passion 
of Jesus Christ, they would obtain for me grace to 
feel all the sufferings of that holy Passion. Accord- 
ingly, St. John pierced my soul with such an exceed- 
ing bitter pain that I had never felt anything so 
severe ; and I then knew that the sword of grief 
which pierced through the virginal heart of the holy 
Mother of God and of St. John the Evangelist was 
far sharper than any of the martyrs' sufferings, and 
that they suffered at the foot of the Cross torments 
greater than any martyrdom." 

This is the testimony of a soul favored with the 
special communications of the Holy Spirit. The 
reader will not be surprised if we endeavor to con- 
firm him in the persuasion which we have ourselves, 
namely, that St. John the Evangelist is second only 
to Mary in the ranks of those hidden martyrs in 
whose hearts the Cross is planted by Jesus Christ 
Himself. These He associates with Himself in His 
title and office of Victim. He chooses them to per- 
petuate His sacrifice for the salvation of the world by 
making them share in His sufferings, especially in 
the inmost sorrows of His holy Soul and His agoniz- 
ing Heart. We think it right to advise such souls as 
are being led through the path of tribulation and 
sorrow, to have recourse with confidence to the pro- 
tection of St. John, the beloved disciple of the ago- 



228 . THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

nizing Heart of Jesus and the favorite child of the 
compassionate Heart of Mary. There exists, indeed, 
not only between the members of Jesus Christ, but 
also between their various offices, a certain intimate 
relationship which attaches them closely one to 
another. This causes in them a mutual dependence, 
forming an order full of harmony and beauty. St. 
John occupies a place of honor in this mysterious 
hierarchy. He thus exercises upon all those who are 
placed below him a visible influence of love and pro- 
tecting care. 

Let us consider Mary Magdalene, that favored 
soul who became so dear to the Heart of her Divine 
Master when her own heart overflowed in tears of 
repentance and burning love. Was not she also one 
of these chosen victims of love ? 

The Son of God poured into her penitent heart 
His richest gifts of pardon and grace, to convert her 
into an instrument of mercy by which He would 
attract numberless converted sinners. Eighteen cen- 
turies have rolled by since the day when she knelt, 
bathed in tears, at the foot of the Cross, with Mary 
and the Beloved Disciple. But has a single day 
passed in which the remembrance of her history, 
her name, her prayers, her example, her tears, her 
long penance, have not exerted a salutary influence 
over some prodigal soul ? Has she not exercised a 
true apostleship of mercy and conversion ? She was 
the chosen instrument in the hand of God to bring 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 229 

down the healing dew of grace upon the land of 
Gaul? It was owing to her powerful intervention 
with God, added to the labors of the saintly men 
who succeeded each other in the task of its evangel- 
ization, that this dry and barren land became "the 
Most Christian Kingdom, the eldest daughter of the 
Church," that land of France ever dear to God and 
ever generous. To-day. tried and afflicted, its afflic- 
tions will diminish from the moment that devoted 
souls shall offer themselves to God, like Magdalene, 
as victims for its deliverance. 

Who indeed can tell the marvellous power of 
love and sorrow in souls which are closely united to 
the very Fountain of grace, even the Sacred Heart 
of Jesus? Who can describe the holy influences 
which flow from a heart made divine by contact 
with the Heart of the Man-God ? Its influence can 
be bounded only by the limits of its sorrow and its 
love. According to its love and its suffering through 
love will be the extent of its action and the efficacy 
of its work in that mysterious world of souls, in the 
region of the supernatural in its relationship with our 
poor humanity. No, the branches of the sturdiest 
tree derive not from the trunk sap to quicken them 
into life so completely as one of these souls obtains 
heavenly life for itself and others from that Divine 
Body to which it is united, from Jesus Christ the 
Tree of Life, the true Vine Which brings forth Its 
fruit unto eternal life. Ego sum vitis, vos palmites. 



230 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

We believe most certainly that Mary Magdalene was 
one of these fruitful branches, united most closely to 
the Divine Tree. Rooted with Him in the soil of 
Calvary, she drank in the divine life abundantly 
and distributed it in turn to an innumerable multi- 
tude of lesser branches. These forevermore owe to 
her, after God, the grace that they remained not 
amongst the number of dry and withered branches, 
fit only to be cast into the fire. 

Thus, from the foot of the Cross, or rather from 
the very Wounds of Jesus Crucified, have arisen 
three great branches, which are united to Him by 
suffering and love. 

The first, on which the other two depend, is 
the Blessed Virgin, the most loving and compas- 
sionate Mother of Jesus. By reason of the excel- 
lence and intimacy of her union with her Divine 
Son and of her conformity to Him in His sufferings 
and love, she is placed at the very fountain-head of 
grace. She receives the divine life in such abun- 
dance that she is filled with the fulness of all graces, 
and dispenses them in turn to the children of men 
throughout all generations. It was thus that the 
most holy Virgin, at the foot of the Cross, was 
constituted Queen of the Apostles of Suffering. 

After Mary and through her, two other branches 
spring from the Tree of Life — St. John and St. Mary 
Magdalene. Their love and compassion for their 
Crucified Master cause them to resemble Him so 



THE AP0STLESH1P OF SUFFERING. 231 

nearly and perfectly that, next to the Blessed Virgin, 
they deserve to occupy the highest rank amongst the 
Apostles of Suffering. In reward for their love and 
devotion, an important mission has been confided to 
each. To St. John was entrusted the task of con- 
verting the city of Ephesus and the countries of the 
East, by his charity and sufferings, no less than by 
his preaching. To Mary Magdalene, who became 
known as the penitent in her dwelling-place at Sainte 
Baume in Provence, was entrusted the mission of 
preaching Jesus Christ in the countries of the West 
by her tears, her prayers, her voluntary expiations, 
and, more than all these, by the sacred ardors of her 
love. Marseilles especially is indebted to her, as 
well as to her brother Lazarus, and her sister Martha, 
for its happy conversion from paganism and for 
becoming what it now is, one of the most thoroughly 
Catholic cities in the whole world. 

Thus it is on Calvary, at the foot of the Cross, 
that the Aposileship of Suffering was first inaugurated 
in the person of Mary, Mother of Jesus, and through 
her in the persons of St. John and St. Mary Magda- 
lene. This is indeed a glorious origin ! Will not 
every Christian be inspired with a holy jealousy to 
obtain a share, according to his abilit}-, in so sub- 
lime a work, especially in these evil times, when it is 
more than ever necessary to increase the numbers of 
such Christians as are ready and willing to devote 
their own lives for the salvation of their brethren ? 

5 



CHAPTER VIII. 

Examples. 

We now proceed to adduce certain examples 
in confirmation of the doctrine which has been 
advanced in the preceding Chapter. They will 
show how the Son of God has been pleased in all 
times to associate with Himself in His sacrifice cer- 
tain special victims, for the needs of the Church and 
the conversion of the souls redeemed at the price of 
His Blood. As our space is limited, we shall confine 
ourselves to a few of the most striking amongst these 
examples. 

We have already mentioned St. Mary Magdalene 
of Pazzi, that seraphic soul burning with love of 
Jesus Christ and devoured by zeal for the salvation 
of souls. In her life we read the following words : 
" The Lord gave her to understand that it was His 
good pleasure that she should obtain permission 
from her Superiors to fast during several years upon 
bread and water, Sundays alone excepted ; that she 
should always walk barefoot, even during the winter, 
and wear only a simple tunic : and her Superiors 
were obliged to grant her this permission, recogniz- 
ing the Divine will." 

It was, in fact, the will of God that she should 
live a life of such extreme austerity for the expiation 
of the sins of others. The penances of this Saint were 
232 



THE AP0STLESH1P OF SUFFERING. 233 

admirable because in them she looked to nothing but 
the will of God and the love of her neighbor. Even 
in the ecstasies with which she was favored, she 
suffered in conformity with Jesus Christ. 

"Her cries and deep sighing, at the height of 
her ecstasies, were evident proofs of the sufferings 
she endured. To suffer was all her desire; and 
occasionally these sufferings would rise to such a 
pitch that she could not possibly have survived them, 
had not the Almighty Hand of God supported her 
and kept her from falling at the same time that He 
inflicted upon her these wounds of love. On 
Monday in Passion week of the year 1586, she 
entreated the Son Of God so earnestly that He would 
permit her to feel some part of His sufferings during 
His Passion, that our Blessed Lord granted her 
request. The whole night between Thursday and 
Friday, she felt violent pains throughout every part 
of her body, which increased very much toward ten 
o'clock in the evening of the same day. Falling 
into an ecstasy, she endured such agonizing pain 
throughout her whole body that great drops of sweat 
flowed from every limb and a torrent of tears gushed 
from her eyes. She suffered in this manner during 
the course of several hours, and it seemed hardly- 
possible for any human being to endure such pains 
and live." 

But even this was not enough ; this chosen 
victim was destined to endure deeper and keener 



234 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

pains. AlmightyGod, intending to raise her soul to 
a still higher degree of sanctity, gave her to under- 
stand that for the space of five years she should be 
deprived of all those heavenly consolations which she 
had hitherto enjoyed. On hearing this, she became 
pale as death itself; but knowing that it was the will 
of God, she resolved to suffer whatsoever He should 
be pleased to send. God then permitted the devil 
to harass this holy virgin by five different kinds of 
temptation : namely, temptations of infidelity, of 
pride, of impurity, of darkness in the understanding, 
and of gluttony. She endured these severe trials 
with redoubled generosity and love toward Him Who 
thus held her nailed to the cross. She came forth 
victorious from these as well as from all the other 
trials of her life, which was one long series of suffer- 
ings ; and when the time of her reward was come, 
she went to receive it in Heaven. There she now 
reigns with her Divine Spouse, together with the 
blessed souls whom she gained to Him by her 
prayers, her sufferings, and her love. 

The angelic St. Aloysius was also, according to 
the testimony of St. Mary Magdalene of Pazzi her- 
self, another of those chosen victims, one of those 
Apostles of Suffering who are appointed by God to 
continue by love and sorrow the work of redemption 
which was undertaken by His own Divine Son. Let 
us hear St. Mary Magdalene relate a revelation 
which she received one day, in an ecstasy, from our 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 235 

Lord respecting the glory and the hidden martyrdom 
of St. Aloysius : 

"Oh, how great is the glory which Aloysius, 
son of Ignatius, now possesses ! I could never have 
believed it to have been so great, if my Jesus had not 
manifested it to me. It appears to me that very few 
of the blessed in heaven enjoy a greater glory than 
his. I say that Aloysius is a Saint. I say that we 
have Saints in our church (she meant the Saints 
whose relics were preserved in the church belonging 
to the convent) whose glory is not so great as his. 
If I possibly could, I would travel through the whole 
world for the purpose of repeating that Aloysius, 
son of Ignatius, is a Saint. I would wish to display 
his glory to every eye, that all may know how much 
God is glorified in this Saint through the magnifi- 
cence of His gifts to him. It is his hidden and 
interior life which has won him all this glory. Who 
can tell how great is the value of interior acts, or the 
recompense which they obtain ? There is no com- 
parison whatever to be made between outward 
appearances and inward worth. St. Aloysius, so 
long as he lived in this world, was ever waiting on 
the interior whisper of the Word of God to his heart, 
and ever careful to put those holy inspirations into 
practice to the uttermost of his power. He was an 
unknown martyr ; for the soul that loves Thee, O my 
God ! feels Thee to be so great and infinitely lovely, 
that it suffers a perpetual and cruel martyrdom in 



236 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

feeling itself wanting in loving Thee as much as 
Thou deservest to be loved, and in seeing that Thy 
creatures offend Thee, instead of loving Thee. 
Not only was he a martyr, but a martyr with all his 
heart and will. Oh, how tenderly he loved Thee 
whilst he was still upon earth ! And now how does 
he enjoy Thee in the full plenitude of Thy love in 
heaven ! While he was still in this mortal frame, he 
darted acts of love, like so many arrows, at the 
Heart of the Word of God. Now that the Word of 
God has wounded his own heart with the same darts 
of love, he knows and enjoys the value and reward 
of all his former actions." 

She afterward saw that this Saint prayed with 
especial fervor for those who, whilst yet on earth, 
had afforded him spiritual consolation and assistance. 
This caused her to exclaim : "I too will endeavor to 
gain souls to God, so that if any of them are so happy 
as to reach Paradise, they may intercede in the same 
manner for me." When the Fathers of the Society 
of Jesus who were residing at Florence heard of 
this vision, they immediately entreated the Mother 
Prioress to give them the substance of it in writing, a. 
request which was granted the more readily, because 
those Fathers had always rendered great spiritual 
services to the community. It was on the 4th of 
April, 1607, that Mary Magdalene of Pazzi was 
favored with this remarkable vision. 

Several centuries before her time, God had 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 237 

raised up in that same country of Italy, which is so 
fertile in fruits of sanctity, the illustrious virgin, 
Catharine of Sienna, to be a living image of His 
Crucified Son. This true apostle of prayer and 
suffering was the instrument of effecting incredible 
good in souls in that disastrous epoch, when they 
were in the greatest danger of incurring eternal per- 
dition. Her own confessor was not sufficient to hear 
the confessions of the multitudes of sinners whom her 
prayers and sufferings had recalled to God ; he was 
obliged to procure several other priests to assist him 
in the task. We will give a few anecdotes taken 
from the life of this humble virgin, to prove the 
immense influence exercised by her over the Heart of 
Jesus, her Divine Spouse. 

A woman named Palmerina, inspired by a kind 
of diabolical impulse, conceived so intense a hatred 
for St. Catharine as to be unable to endure to see 
her or to hear her voice. She drove her violently 
from her house, refusing all the services which the 
holy woman desired to render her by relieving the 
sickness God had sent her in punishment for her 
sins. She persevered in these evil feelings until the 
very hour of her death. Then Catharine prayed 
more earnestly than ever for that poor soul ; and, 
falling prostrate before our Lord, she declared to 
Him that she would never rise until He had taken 
pity upon the infatuated woman. Her prayer was 
granted. Our Blessed Lord touched and softened 



238 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

the heart of that poor creature so that she shed tears 
of repentance, and after receiving the last Sacra- 
ments with edifying devotion she breathed out her 
soul in peace. 

A rich burgher of Sienna, named Andrew, was 
a most heartless, wicked man, an enemy to God and 
to His Saints, and a hateful blasphemer of the faith. 
He was drawing near his end, and still obstinately 
refused to make his last confession. But an apostle 
of prayer and suffering was near the wretched man, 
and her tears and supplications were unceasingly 
offered for him to God. Again the prayer of Catha- 
rine was granted, and the dying man now became 
meek and gentle as a lamb, acknowledged the 
wickedness of his past life, confessed his sins, and 
died in peace. 

Our Lord granted to His holy spouse, not only 
graces of conversion and consolation for sinners, but 
also graces of devotion and perfection for the just. 
Thus she obtained for St. Raymond, her confessor, 
a vehement contrition for sin; for a certain Religious 
she gained a gift of great tenderness in devotion ; 
and for many others so remarkable spiritual assist- 
ance and comfort, that it seemed as if she had only 
to ask of our Lord and to obtain. 

We may now turn to another illustrious apostle 
of prayer and suffering, born on the distant shores 
of America ; for our Blessed Lord chooses from 
every land. We mean St. Rose of Lima, a worthy 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 239 

rival of St. Catharine of Sienna, whose spiritual 
daughter she considered herself to be. Her mind 
was occupied night and day with anxiety for souls, 
for the conversion of sinners ; and she would gladly 
have given a thousand lives to bring back a single 
one to Jesus Christ. 

For their sakes she imposed upon herself 
severe and terrible mortifications. The writer of her 
life thus speaks in enumerating these austerities : 
*'Her abstinence was extreme; and ordinary disci- 
plines seemed too gentle for her. She made one for 
herself out of two iron chains, with which she chas- 
tised herself every day until the blood flowed. But 
this she did with particular severity when she had 
imposed the penance upon herself for the conversion 
of sinners. Then she offered herself to God as a 
victim to make expiation for their sins, thus treating 
herself with holy cruelty. The hair-shirt which she 
wore reached from her shoulders to her knees. The 
bed on which she slept was a bed of suffering and 
watching rather than one of repose ; and for a pillow 
she used a stone. To these sufferings, which she 
imposed upon herself in order to attain a close 
resemblance to her Crucified Lord, the most bitter 
internal tribulation was very frequently added. ' ' 

Such is indeed the ordinary action adopted by 
God toward those souls which He associates more 
particularly with the sacrifice of His Son. The 
sufferings endured by our dearest Lord were not 



240 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

outward only, but also interior and hidden. So the 
person who is destined to resemble his Crucified 
Lord, is like Him a Victim of pain and sorrow both 
in body and mind. This truth appears in a very 
striking manner in the life of St. Rose of Lima. 
During fifteen years she underwent continual com- 
bats, or rather an agony far more bitter than death 
itself. . Being delivered over to the most fearful 
temptations by God's especial permission, she 
endured for a length of time one of the most heart- 
rending kinds of suffering incidental to the spiritual 
life — namely, the trial, or rather the torment, of 
darkness of spirit. 

"In this state of terrible obscurity," says her 
biographer, "she could no longer think of God; 
and the demons filled her mind with such frightful 
spectres that, although this holy virgin had borne 
the most insupportable anguish with courage, yet 
she was now quite unable to accustom herself to this 
species of torture. The mere thought of it was so 
terrible that, when she felt the hour of her trial 
approaching, she trembled in every limb, .and 
implored our Lord to spare her this bitter cup, 
submitting nevertheless as He had done to the will 
of her Heavenly Father. These sufferings were 
carried to such a pitch that it was thought proper 
to have the manner of her spiritual life examined by 
the most famous theologians of the University of 
Lima. After submitting her to several examinations. 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 241 

they came to the conclusion that the sufferings were 
trials sent by God, Who was preparing her for a 
state of high perfection by causing her to pass 
through this period of darkness and suffering. To 
these interior pains were afterward added several 
severe illnesses, during which she exclaimed with 
heroic love and patience, ' O good Jesus, increase my 
sufferings, but also increase my love ! ' At length the 
hour of her last sacrifice arrived. Her final sickness 
was an assemblage of all the pains and sufferings that 
she had endured during the whole course of her life. 
She suffered agonies for which the physicians could 
not account by any natural causes, and they con- 
fessed that God was acting in supernatural ways to 
communicate to His Saint a portion of those suffer- 
ings which He had endured in His Passion for the 
salvation of the human race, and which she also was 
to suffer for the same end." 

Less than a century after this, on the same 
torrid soil of South America, another lovely virgin 
flourished, who for her admirable innocence was 
called the Lily of Quito. Her name was Marianne 
de Paredes, and she was born at Quito, then in Peru. 
She was worthy to be a compatriot of St. Rose of 
Lima, and devoted her life to treading in he/ foot- 
steps, as she had followed in those of her Crucified 
Lord. Her life was a continual series of crosses 
endured with heroic patience for God and souls. 
She too was a worthy apostle of prayer and suffer- 



242 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

ing ; and who can say how many poor sinners have 
entered the gates of Heaven by means of this lowly 
maiden ? She was so eager for suffering that she 
made a shirt for herself of the prickly leaves which 
abound in those countries. On her head she wore a 
crown of thorns which was partly hidden by her veil. 
She employed a discipline of little iron chains with 
so great severity that the earth where she knelt was 
reddened with her blood. She usually slept upon 
angular pieces of wood, or upon the bare ground; 
and she observed a continual fast. 

" The end of this holy maiden," says the writer 
of her life, ' ' was a true holocaust for the sins of her 
fellow-creatures. In the year 1645, the city of 
Quito was ravaged and depopulated by a terrible 
epidemic. The terror of the people at this visitation 
was still further augmented by frequent earthquakes. 
On the fourth Sunday in Lent the virgin's confessor, 
when explaining the Sacred Scriptures to the people, 
exhorted them to appease the wrath of God by 
fervent prayer. He added that if a victim were 
required, he would willingly offer his own life. The 
holy woman was amongst the audience. Urged by 
an impulse from the Holy Spirit she rose imme- 
diately, and in words of fire made the offering of her 
life to God for the pardon of her afflicted people. 
Her sacrifice was accepted. The earthquakes ceased 
that very day, and the epidemic became less fatal ; 
it decreased as fast as she approached her end. 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 243 

And when this young victim, who had scarcely- 
attained the age of twenty-six years, had breathed 
her last sigh, the epidemic had completely disap- 
peared. Happy," exclaims her biographer, as he 
concludes his affecting recital, "happy is that 
country which possesses this treasure of penance and 
of merit." 

Happy, we in our turn exclaim, happy will our 
beloved country be if, amidst her misfortunes, God 
raises up to her some of those chosen souls who 
generously offer themselves as victims for her wel- 
fare. "How many souls," goes on the historian, 
"have been saved by the austerities of this saintly 
woman ! How many may yet be saved by her 
prayers ! From her throne in heaven she watches 
over her beloved country. May she preserve it in 
the true faith, may she restore peace to its borders, 
and may she obtain from God that it never fall a 
prey to the devouring wolves which ravage those fair 
and unhappy countries ! ' ' 

And we also cry : Ah ! how many souls might 
be saved in our own dear country, even in these days 
of desolation and sorrow, if voluntary victims, dear 
to the agonizing Heart of Jesus, would freely offer 
themselves to suffer and to die for her ; if, following 
the heroic examples which we have here shown to 
them, they were ready to devote themselves without 
reserve, to offer themselves entirely as a whole burnt 
sacrifice ! We are fully convinced that what is 



244 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

most wanted in France and all other Catholic 
nations of our day, is martyrdom. It seems as if this 
truth were recognized by the enemies of our faith. 
Foreseeing that the triumph of religion would 
naturally follow upon the first blood shed by Cath- 
olics for the faith, they make it a rule to avoid at all 
hazards the semblance of persecution. The blood of 
martyrs is now just as in the days of Nero and Dio- 
cletian, the "seed of the Church." Sanguis mar- 
tyr um se??ien Christianorum. 

But although the sword of persecution is not yet 
lifted to take away our lives, a means is still left us 
which we may substitute for the martyrdom of blood. 
Our enemies will not honor us by making us martyrs 
of the sword. Well, let us be martyrs in heart, by 
suffering freely accepted. Let us offer ourselves as 
victims for the salvation of our country and for the 
triumph of the Church. Let us accept, with this 
noble aim and uniting ourselves with Jesus Christ, 
with His agonizing Heart, and with the compas- 
sionate Heart of Mary, all the pains, sickness, trials, 
and sufferings which it may please God in His mercy 
to send upon us. And if He should be pleased to 
demand the offering of our life — ah, then, for His 
love as well as for the love of those souls which He 
has redeemed with His Blood, let us not refuse Him 
this last sacrifice ! Who can tell whether the merci- 
ful justice of God may not have fixed upon this sacri- 
fice as the price which is to purchase the safety of 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 245 

our country and the approaching triumph of the 
Church ? 

But before we conclude this Chapter we must 
on no account fail to point out, amongst those 
chosen victims whom our Lord has condescended to 
associate with Himself in continuing His work of 
redemption, the humble daughter of St. Francis of 
Sales, whose heroic virtue and shining miracles have 
won the solemn honors of beatification. Margaret 
Mary Alacoque was plainly destined by God to serve 
as an instrument in His greatest works of mercy. 
She could be no other than a victim, in union with 
Jesus Christ her Divine Spouse. From Him, the 
Son of God, in ever-memorable apparitions, she 
received a solemn charge and mission to reveal to 
the world those treasures of grace enclosed in His 
Sacred Heart, the true Victim of love and suffering 
for the world's salvation. Those who study the life 
of this holy Religious of the Visitation, filled as it 
was with tribulation, grief, and anguish, will not 
comprehend the full meaning of that long series of 
trials which made of her life a perpetual martyrdom 
unless they also comprehend that truth which we 
have striven so earnestly to impress upon ihe readers 
of this little book : that it was the will of the Son of 
God, not only to effect the work of man's redemption 
by the Cross, but also to effect its. individual applica- 
tion to each one in particular by means of the Cross. 
And it is for this reason that He perpetuates Himself 



246 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

as a Victim in His suffering members, especially in 
some highly privileged souls who are specially chosen 
by Him to fulfil this sublime mission. Thou wast 
of the number of those chosen souls, O Blessed 
Margaret Mary. May we obtain the same favor 
from the most merciful Heart of Jesus by the aid of 
thy prayers. 



CHAPTER IX. 

Voluntary Victims of Our Own Day. 

God alone can tell the names and the number 
of those devoted and fervent Christians, men and 
women, who, in the troublous days in which we live, 
have received the noble mission of offering them- 
selves with Jesus Christ as a sacrifice of expiation, 
to obtain from the infinite clemency of God mercy 
and pardon for this culpable generation. They are 
found in every walk of life ; in the mansions of the 
great and the humbler cabins of the poor, among 
the clergy and in the depths of the cloister. To 
disarm the hand of Divine Justice so long suspended 
over our heads has been the self-appointed task of 
these generous souls. Nor is it prayer alone they 
offer but voluntary expiations and the daily repeated 
surrender of their life. 

Chief among the grounds of hope we have, 
with God's grace, for expecting the glorious triumph 
of the Church and of Catholic France, is this. God 
grant that the number of these voluntary victims 
may increase ever more and more. "The day of 
triumph so greatly desired will be thus brought so 
much the nearer. While waiting here are two touch- 
ing examples drawn from contemporary sources, 
which may encourage us to walk in this path of 
atoning sacrifice. They are to be found in the life 
of Pius IX. of glorious and venerated memory. 

247 



248 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

The first is related by the Marquis Ariatole de 
Segur, author of the Life of the pious and lamented 
Monseigneur de Segur, his illustrious brother. Mgr. 
de Segur, we have every reason to believe, offered 
himself as a voluntary victim to obtain the triumph 
of the Church and the salvation of souls. The 
moving tale of the Marquis de Segur which the 
author of the Life of Pius IX. gives in full runs thus. 

" It was through Mgr. Bastide, that I learned to 
know Mademoiselle Amelie Leautard. This saintle 
woman, a native of Marseilles was a sort of providency 
for the poor, the prisoners, and the soldiers. For 
the poor sick soldiers she secured one great boon, the 
introduction of the Sisters of Charity into the mili- 
tary hospitals of Marseilles. This admirable Christian 
woman came to Rome to pray at the Tomb of the 
Apostles and to obtain the Pope's blessing. Drawn 
to stay by an attraction from above, she resolved to 
end her days in Rome. She became the mother of 
the Pontifical Zouaves as she had been of the French 
soldiers at Marseilles. 

"In 1866, feeling her strength going and not 
knowing in what way to continue her work for God, 
the inspiration came to her to crown her life by a 
last heroic sacrifice. Pius IX. was seriously ill and 
his august and precious health caused no little 
anxiety to Catholics. Mile. Leautard determined to 
offer herself as a victim to God in place of His Vicar. 
She feared however that this might be an act of pre- 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 249 

sumption and resolved first to have the approval of 
the Pope himself. 

"When she opened to the Pope her sublime 
desire Pius IX. remained some time silent and 
motionless, while the sainted woman knelt before 
him awaiting his answer, her hands clasped and her 
eyes fixed on his face. At length, as if obeying an 
interior voice that had spoken to him, he laid his 
hand on her head and said with an accent of solem- 
nity : 'Go, my daughter, and do what the Spirit of 
God has suggested to you.' He blessed her with 
emotion, and she retired full of joy. 

" The following day was a Sunday. Mile. Leau- 
tard heard, according to her custom, the first Mass 
at St. Peter's. After receiving Holy Communion and 
while the Victim of Love was still in her heart she 
offered her life for the Pope to Him Who had laid 
down His life for the human race. Hardly had she 
completed her offering, when she was seized with 
sudden and terrible pains. With a cry she fell to the 
ground. A crowd gathered round her and she was 
carried home. Some priests and religious who knew 
her and who happened to be near her in the church 
accompanied her to her home in the Strada Ripresi 
dei Barberi. 

" The doctor was sent for but he declared his art 
powerless against this strange attack. All that day 
and the two days following, she suffered without 
respite, pains so cruel that she could neither speak nor 



250 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

thank those who attended her. A smile or a move- 
ment of the hands was all she could give them. 

"On Wednesday, December 19, relief came. 
Her pains ceased. She asked for the last Sacra- 
ments and received them with angelic joy and 
devotion. After her thanksgiving she bade good-bye 
to all her friends and recited the responses to the 
prayers for the dying with a fervor that touched 
every heart. When the last words of the prayer were 
reached : ' Depart Christian soul in the name of the 
Father, Who created thee, in the name of the Son, 
Who redeemed thee, in the name of the Holy Ghost, 
Who sanctified thee.' She bowed her head and 
was gone." 

The news of this strange death was carried to 
the Vatican. Pius IX. heard it without betraying 
any surprise. Raising his eyes to heaven, he said in 
a voice broken by emotion: "Cosi tosto accettato ! 
— so soon accepted." 

To this exalted example of Christian heroism we 
add another not less heroic. We find this also in the 
Vie de Pie IX. It is the Superior of the Sisters of 
the Prisons, who writes from Paris. Her letter is 
dated February 27, 1867. 

"A young professed, Sister N , was just com- 
pleting the years during which the vows are tempo- 
rary and had been admitted to the profession. In 
the beginning of December she said to me : ' Rever- 
end Mother, you insist so much on our praying for 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 251 

the Church; I do not know what more I can do. 
I have been thinking of offering myself as a victim 
and giving my life for the conversion of the great 
persecutors of the Church. ' ' Suppose God were to 
take you at your word ?' ' I should be well pleased/ 
she answered me : ' that would show He had accepted 
my sacrifice ; only if it comes before my vows, do> 
not let me die without making them.' I took this 
as a bit of excessive zeal and attached no importance 
to it. Two days before she died, she said to me ; 
1 Reverend Mother, I have a pain in the cheek, 
which gives me great trouble.' I teased her about it 
saying : ' That is not very much like being a victim, 
is it?' That same night she came again. The pain 
had gone down from the cheek to the stomach and 
she could not stay in the chapel. I sent her to bed. 
The next day, Saturday, I made her see the doctor,, 
but he did not think much of her indisposition. 
Sunday passed without any change either for better or 
for worse. Toward night, as the remedies were pro- 
ducing the contrary effect to what we looked for, 
I began to be a little anxious. At five o'clock, I sent 
her to the infirmary. There was no fever. The 
pulse was good. I sent for the doctor. At eight 
o'clock, she said to me: ' Reverend Mother, put 
your hand on my body, it is as cold as ice, and yet 
inside I am on fire.' Fear took possession of me 
then. Without waiting for the doctor's verdict, I 
sent for Father D . It was time ; five minutes 



252 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

more and we should have been too late. She made 
her confession, received the Holy Viaticum, Extreme 
Unction, all the indulgences, pronounced her vows 
and renewed her sacrifice over and over again. 
Then like a warrior, she sat up in bed, and raised 
her eyes to heaven. Then she fell back on the 
pillow and after three minutes of gentle agony was 
dead. She gave her last sigh with the peaceful 
smile of an angel on her lips. The Father was pray- 
ing interiorly and asking our Lord to send the Choir 
of Virgins to take her. While the invocation was on 
his lips, our Sister died. 

"We have kept her body three days now, on 
account of the feasts. Instead of decomposing, her 
face has a heavenly brightness which manifests the 
happiness of her soul." 

There is nothing strange in all this. At every 
epoch since the beginning of Christianity, during 
the persecutions of the Church especially and at 
seasons of great public calamity, like instances of 
Christian heroism have been known, instances of the 
most sublime devotedness. To cite but one ; when 
the plague was desolating Rome, a young girl, a 
pupil of the Visitation Convent, offered herself to 
God if in return He would spare the Sovereign 
Pontiff. God heard her prayer. She died a victim. 
Alexander VII. was saved. 

O you who read these lines, devoted Christian 
men and women, here is a future opened to your 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 25o 

generosity. Greater than ever is the need of great 
sacrifices. The tide of tribulations threatening the 
Church is ever rising higher. Let us prevent its 
further rise by our voluntary expiations. Perhaps 
this is what God is waiting for. This supreme sacri- 
fice may move Him to suspend the visitations of His 
angered justice, this voluntary offering especially 
of the life that is ours made in union with that which 
Jesus Christ made of His life in Gethsemani and on 
Calvary for the salvation of the human race. Oh, 
how bright will be in heaven the crown of these 
apostles, these hidden martyrs ! How great and 
magnificent their recompense for the immense glory 
they will have given to God and for the countless 
multitude of souls they will have saved. 



CHAPTER X. 

The Qualifications of the Apostles of Suffering, particularly of 
the Special Victims. 

He who offers to pay another's debt must first 
be able to pay his own. Right order demands that 
we should not undertake the responsibilities of 
others until we have performed those which devolve 
upon ourselves. If you wish to become an apostle 
of suffering, and most of all a victim especially 
immolated to God, you must first of all purify your 
own soul from sin. To the very utmost of your 
power you must keep from the slightest stain. The 
first condition required of us, in order to exercise 
the apostleship of suffering with fruit, is Purity. 
Without purity, your sacrifice can never be pleasing 
to God. The purer your heart becomes, the greater 
will be the love and pleasure with which He will 
graciously accept your humblest offering. The fit- 
ness of a Christian to become an apostle of suffering 
is, then, in proportion to the purity of his heart 
and the freedom of his soul from every stain of sin 
before God. 

This truth is so evident that St. Paul, when 

enumerating the qualities of the sacred Victim Who 

shed His Blood for us on Calvary, exclaims : "It was 

fitting that we should have such a High Priest, holy, 

innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners" Talis 

254 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 255 

enim decebat ut nobis esset Pontifex, sanctus, innocens, 
impollutus, segregatus a peccatoribus. (Hebrews, vii. 
26.) Now, if it was necessary that Jesus Christ, High 
Priest and Victim for the salvation of the human 
race, should be holy (sanctus), how can you dispense 
with that primary and essential quality in every 
victim, sanctity, if you wish to be an apostle of 
suffering, that is, to labor like Him, by your per- 
sonal immolation, for the salvation of your brethren? 
And the more sanctity you are possessed of, — that is 
to say, the more closely you are conformed to Jesus 
Christ, the Holy Victim, — the more fitted you will 
be to undertake the apostleship of suffering. 

But our High Priest, says St. Paul, must also be 
innocent. The Victim for the sins of the world is 
called the Lamb of God {Agnus Dei*). The qualities 
which we admire in a lamb are its gentleness and 
innocence. The Son of God and of Mary united 
most wonderfully these touching qualities in His own 
Person. Jeremias describes Him as a Lamb, meek and 
gentle, led to the slaughter. Ego quasi agnus man- 
suetus, qui portatur advictimam. (Jeremias, ii.) It is 
of Him that the wise man said, li He is the brightness of 
eternal light, the spotless mirror of the majesty of God y 
the faithful image of His goodness. ' ' Candor est enim 
lucis aeternae, speculum sine macula Dei majestatis, et 
imago bonitatis illius. (Wisdom, vii.) 

If you, then, desire to become an apostle of 
suffering, you must endeavor to become a lamb of 

6 



256 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

meekness and innocence before God and men. Be 
like a lamb under the hand of God, Who immolates 
you. Suffer Him to offer you in sacrifice according 
to His will, by the sharpest sufferings, by the most 
painful trials, by tribulations most repugnant to 
nature ; and this not only for the space of one day, or 
one month, but for as long as it shall please Him to 
ordain. If you are forced to complain, let it be after 
the pattern of the Lamb of God in the Garden 
of Olives, when He said in the midst of His agony : 
tl O my Father, let this cup pass from Me ! neverthe- 
less, not as I will, but as Thou wilt. ' ' Fiat voluntas 
tua. Then will you be a true apostle of suffering, 
because you will be a lamb full of meekness and 
gentleness. You will appease by your meekness the 
wrath of God against sinners, who are like devouring 
wolves. 

But if to this lamb-like meekness you unite 
innocence, that magnificent white vestment which 
causes the soul to shine so brightly in the sight of 
God, then you will be indeed a complete and per- 
fect sacrifice. You will be invested with all power 
over the Heart of God, to incline Him to mercy 
toward those poor sinners whose salvation you 
implore. It is true that black lambs are pretty 
enough, but they are not white ; and however rich 
they may be in good qualities, that of being white is 
not possessed by them and yet men love to find this 
in a lamb. 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 257 

O profound and impenetrable mysteries of 
grace ! O sovereign independence of the gifts of 
God ! It sometimes happens that souls which have 
not always been faithful to God, which have even 
been so unhappy as to offend often and grievously 
against His Divine Majesty, become under His 
almighty hand apostles of suffering, special victims, 
instruments of grace that act with greater efficiency 
in winning souls to God than such of their fellow- 
laborers as have sinned less than they, but who have 
not followed up the continued action of grace with 
the same love and devotedness. We must not attempt 
to fathom the mysteries of the good pleasure of God. 
God is the Master of His own gifts, and the Spirit 
breatheth where He willeth. Spiritus ubi vult spirat. 
However, it is certain that such as have been so 
happy as to preserve their purity and innocence, are 
more fitted, naturally and supernaturally, to be 
united to the sacrifice of the God-Man. It is most 
frequently amongst these pure and holy Christians 
that God delights to select His chosen victims, whom 
He uses as His instruments to procure the salvation of 
many. But no one is excluded from this great min- 
istry, for which purity is not more essential than 
humility and love. 

Let those who have to weep for the faults of their 
past lives, which they would gladly efface with tears 
of blood, take courage, for they are not excluded 
from the apostleship of suffering. Remember the 



258 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

examples of St. Mary Magdalene, St. Peter, St. Paul, 
St. Augustine, and of so many others who, 
after lives- more or less displeasing to God, gave 
themselves up entirely to His grace and became 
Saints. Now the Saints are instruments in the sal- 
vation of souls ; they continue the work of reparation 
which was begun by Jesus Christ, because they are 
closely united to His Cross by sorrow and to His 
Heart by love. But the Cross of Jesus Christ was 
the instrument by which the world's salvation was 
effected ; and His Divine Heart is the inexhaustible 
source and foundation of this salvation. 

St. Paul adds, speaking of Jesus our High Priest 
and Victim : "He is undefiled and separate from 
sinners." Impollutus, segregatus a peccatoribus. We 
need not enter into a separate development of these 
qualities, which are only the consequences of the 
preceding. Besides, they will be explained suffi- 
ciently by the remarks to be made in the following 
Chapter. 



CHAPTER XI. 

Summary of Dispositions required. 

The following question is necessary to render 
the instruction given practical. 

What are the principal dispositions with which 
the apostles of suffering, and particularly the special 
victims of charity, should be endowed ? 

i st. They must possess a spirit of faith making 
them firmly believe in the infinite virtue of the 
Sacrifice of Jesus Christ and in the perpetuity of 
that Sacrifice, not only in an unbloody manner in 
the Most Holy Eucharist, but also in a suffering and 
consequently a bloody manner in the living members 
of His Mystical Body. 

Let all those who aspire to the glorious title of 
apostles of suffering, believe firmly in these truths ; 
believe that the sacrifice of the living members of 
Jesus Christ, united to the sacrifice of their Divine 
Head, has power to contribute not only to their own 
salvation, but also, in a certain measure, to the salva- 
tion of others. Let them believe that the more 
closely they are united to Jesus Christ by sorrow and 
by love, the more fully they participate in the merits 
of His Sacrifice, and consequently the more do they 
contribute to the salvation and perfection of souls. 
Finally, even when it may appear to you that your 
sufferings obtain no perceptible results in favor of 

259 



260 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

those for whom you offer them, still be not discour- 
aged. The work you have undertaken is a work of 
faith, the results of which are often known to God 
alone; but they are not the less precious or less real. 

2dly. They must be possessed of a spirit of 
humility. " What hast thou that thou hast not 
received? If then thou hast received, why dost thou 
glory as if thou hadst not received it ?' ' Quid autem 
habes quod non accepisti. Si autem accepisli, quid 
gloriaris quasi non acceperis ? (I. Corinthians, iv. 
7. ) ' l By the grace of God I am what I am. ' ' Gra- 
tia autem Dei sum id quod sum. (I. Corinthians, 
xv. 10.) Thus speaks the great Apostle St. Paul. 

Like him, the apostles of suffering, if they would 
not labor in vain, must faithfully render to God the 
glory of all the good which is found in themselves 
and of the good which by His grace they effect in 
others, of all which He alone is the Author and 
Cause. Yes, be well assured of this, your apostle- 
ship will be unfruitful if you are not humble. God 
will not accept your offering if it be stained with 
pride. If He condescends to accept it, it will only 
be in part, after cutting away that which is corrupted 
as you would cut from a decaying fruit. You cut off 
the worthless portion, and make use of that which is 
good. But take care that your pride does not grow 
to such a pitch as to vitiate the whole fruit of your 
labors and sacrifices. You would then suffer without 
the slightest fruit ; and next to sin there is no state 



THE AP0STLESH1P OF SUFFERING. 261 

in the world so sad as this. If you desire that your 
sufferings and sorrows should bring forth abundant 
fruits of grace and salvation, you must suffer in a 
spirit of humility like that Divine Victim Who, being 
innocence itself, bent with lowly meekness beneath 
the chastening hand of His heavenly Father's justice. 

Remember that, amongst all the maxims of the 
spiritual life, the most important for all those who 
aspire to perfection, and still more for those who 
desire to contribute to the salvation and perfection 
of souls, is the following : ' ' God resisteth the proud, 
but giveth grace to the humble. ' ' Deus super bis rest's tit, 
humilibus autem dat gratiam. (I. Peter, v.) 

This explains why, among so many souls who 
make profession of piety, there are so few who 
enter deeply into the ways of union with God. It is 
because among these souls there are so few willing to 
go forth entirely from themselves. They are like a 
ship moored in one place, which cannot move until 
the cable be severed. Only break the bond, and 
your soul, no longer captive, will be carried on with 
the powerful stream of grace until it reaches the 
broad ocean of perfection. Thus your loss will 
become your gain. But so long as you withhold 
this final sacrifice of yourself — of your vanity, pride, 
self-love — so long will that highest favor accorded 
only to the humble be denied to you ; and you will 
never be a perfect apostle of suffering. 

3dly. They must obtain a spirit of patience and 



262 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

confoj'mity to the holy will of God. Suffering in itself 
has nothing attractive. Everything about it is pain- 
ful and grievous; and the first impulse of our nature 
inclines us to refuse and repel it. How does it then 
happen that the true servants of God love suffering? 
The,reason is this : they look at it on the divine side, 
under its divine character, as we have endeavored to 
explain in the course of this work. And suffering, 
when regarded in this light, cannot be otherwise than 
attractive ; for on this side we behold it resplendent 
with the Blood of Jesus Christ. 

St. Andrew must certainly have contemplated 
suffering under this God-like aspect when, addressing 
the Cross upon which he was about to suffer, he 
exclaimed, " O good Cross /" O bona Crux ! Good, 
not because of the pain which it will inflict upon me, 
but because that pain, united to the sufferings of my 
Jesus, will enable me to manifest my love to Him. 
Good, because by this Cross, as by a royal road, I 
shall now ascend to heaven and enjoy the presence 
of my God eternally. O bona Crux / O good 
Cross ! Yes, the Cross is indeed good to you, fervent 
apostles of suffering. To you it opens the gates of 
heaven and it gives you a mighty means of opening 
them to many a poor sinner. Then, patience and 
conformity to the holy will of God in all the trials 
which He shall see fit to send you ! It is God Who 
has chosen us to be His victims ; it is for Him to 
choose our Cross, and to lay it upon us. 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 263 

4thly. They must have a spirit of love. Ama, et 
fac quod vis, said St. Augustine. "Love, and do what 
thou wilt." It would be impossible to express in 
fewer words the power and fruitfulness of divine love 
in the heart of man. Love, and you become in a 
way all-powerful over the Heart of God, drawing 
Him to your desires and prayers and sufferings. Your 
love shall make your will so perfectly conformable 
to the will of God, that you will nothing but what 
He wills and all that He wills. 

Can any disposition be more perfect than this, 
more pleasing to the Heart of God ? How great is 
the power of a beloved wife over the heart of her 
husband ! how great the influence of a tenderly loved 
child over the heart of his father ! The soul which 
loves our Lord Jesus Christ with an intense and 
devoted love, is strongly and tenderly loved by Him. 
And as love consists in the reciprocal communica- 
tion of two hearts, of all that they are and have, so 
a soul gives itself wholly to Jesus, and Jesus Himself 
to the soul. Thus by His love it is made rich in the 
possession of God and in the infinite treasures of 
His grace. O favored souls of those who are thus 
closely united to the Sacred Heart of Jesus by love 
and suffering ! do not fear to draw largely from this 
deep Fount of every blessing abundant grace for 
yourselves, your families, your friends ; for the 
Church, the Sovereign Pontiff, for the just and for 
sinners — in a word, for all mankind. The fountain 
6* 



264 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

is inexhaustible ; for God, whilst ever giving, remains 
always the same, the Infinite, the Unchangeable. 

5thly. They must possess a spirit of zeal. ' ' Qui 
non zelat, non amat," St. Augustine says again. "He 
that has no zeal, has no love.'''' How can any one 
say that he loves God, when he is indifferent to the 
eternal salvation of the souls which have cost Him so 
dear? The greater our love for God, the greater 
will be our zeal for His glory and for the salvation 
of our fellow-creatures. And when could the real 
friends of God find stronger motives for holy zeal 
than in such unhappy times as these, when the holy 
cause of God and of souls is so fiercely attacked by 
His many enemies ? Yes, the hour approaches, it is 
even now come, when in defence of the sacred cause 
we must employ every means which the Holy Spirit 
has given into our hands. 

Now, amongst these spiritual weapons there is 
one which yields to no other in power and efficacy — 
the apostleship of suffering. Exercise this apostleship 
in the midst of your families. Whatever your trials, 
your tribulations, your bodily affliction may be, 
accept them patiently. Offer them to God in union 
with the sufferings of Jesus Christ, for the expiation 
of your own sins in the first place, and afterward 
for the salvation of every member of your family, 
which may number at least one prodigal son. Exer- 
cise this apostleship in the parish where you reside, 
O pious and fervent soul, for the benefit of every 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 265 

one of its inhabitants. How many of them need 
to be converted ! How many more, though in the 
right way at the present moment, are yet in 
danger of wandering away and being lost. Offer for 
their salvation, your sufferings, trials, privations, 
poverty, infirmities, sickness; and when God calls 
you to Himself, offer also for them your last agony 
and death. 

And you, devoted Priests, may exercise the 
apostleship of suffering by a life of humility, labor, 
patience, and mortification. Offer yourselves fre- 
quently as victims with Jesus Christ for your flocks 
and for all the souls of men, especially for the most 
neglected. Make this offering especially when you 
are at the holy Altar and during the precious 
moments of thanksgiving, when the sacred Victim is 
still corporally present in you as in a living taber- 
nacle and communicates a greater value to your sac- 
rifice by His sacred Presence. We have heard of 
holy Priests who were so inspired by faith that they 
demanded and obtained of God the favor of dying 
immediately after they had celebrated Holy Mass, in 
order that the sacrifice of their life, united to that 
of the Lamb without spot then dwelling in them,, 
might be more pleasing to Almighty God. What a 
happy death was this ! But let us not content our- 
selves, venerable brethren, with exercising the apos- 
tleship of suffering in our own persons. Let us 
exercise it also by means of the souls confided to our 



266 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

care. Let us teach the faithful who suffer and who 
die in such numbers before our eyes and as it were 
in our arms, to suffer and to die as apostles of suffer- 
ing — that is to say, for the salvation of souls, and 
especially for the conversion of sinners in their own 
parishes, and for the immediate necessities of the 
Church and of their country. 

Devoted Pastors ! in the sick, the suffering, and 
the dying you have an inexhaustible fund of blessing 
and salvation, on which you can always draw for the 
spiritual benefit of your parishes; or, if you are 
chaplains, for the spiritual good of the hospitals, 
charitable institutions, or other establishments which 
are under your charge ; or again, if you are mission- 
aries, for the distant countries in which you are 
laboring in the sweat of your brow. Say then, 
with the heart of an apostle, to the sick person you 
visit, to the dying man whom you are aiding : " My 
friend, remember that Jesus Christ suffered and died 
for you upon the Cross. You are one of His suffering 
members, and at this very moment you are hanging 
upon the Cross with Him. Unite yourself to His 
Sufferings and Death, and say with me from your 
heart : ' O my Saviour Jesus ! I offer to Thee my 
sufferings and the sacrifice of my life for the expia- 
tion of my sins ; for the salyation of all the mem- 
bers of my family; for the conversion of all the 
sinners in this parish, or in this hospital ; for the 
needs of the Holy Catholic Church, in whose bosom 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 267 

I desire to live and die. I offer them for my coun- 
try. My Jesus, mercy ! Agonizing Heart of Jesus, 
have mercy on the dying ! Mary, refuge of sinners, 
pray for me !' " 

And you also, fervent Religious, exercise the 
apostleship of suffering in your Communities. Offer 
continually to God your labors, mortifications, and 
privations ; your vigils, trials, sicknesses ; your last 
agony and your death — for the salvation of souls ; for 
the solid advancement of all your spiritual brethren 
or sisters in the path of religious perfection • for the 
triumph of Holy Church and of the Sovereign Pon- 
tiff; for the spiritual needs of your own and all 
other nations ; for the Catholic education of the 
young ; for the complete extirpation of the secret 
societies which are so dangerous to our holy religion 
and lead so many souls to destruction. Exhort 
those persons for whom you exercise your ministry 
of charity and zeal, to bear their sufferings with 
patience and to offer them to God for the same 
ends. 

Finally, let us all, as living members of Jesus 
Christ, exercise this good and holy apostleship of 
suffering with all the zeal and earnestness of which 
we are capable. Let us believe firmly that in the 
sufferings, the labors, the sicknesses and tribula- 
tions of the living members of Jesus Christ, there is 
an inestimable treasure of buried and hidden grace. 



268 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

Let us seek diligently for this hidden treasure in a 
spirit of faith, humility, patience, love, and zeal 
for our own spiritual benefit as well as for the 
salvation and perfection of our brethren in Jesus 
Christ. 



CHAPTER XII. 

On the Direction of our Intention in Suffering. 

The apostleship of suffering is a kind of interior 
and hidden priesthood, the members of which being 
closely bound together in Jesus Christ perpetuate 
His Sacrifice from age to age throughout all gener- 
ations. Between this kind of secret priesthood and 
the priesthood properly so called, some very strik- 
ing analogies exist which may well be investigated 
in connection with the subject of the present Chap- 
ter. By holy ordination the Catholic Priest has 
been consecrated, to offer the holy Victim of Calvary 
upon the altar and to perpetuate unto the consum- 
mation of ages, in an unbloody manner, the Bloody 
Sacrifice of the Cross. The apostle of suffering, 
especially if he has received the mission to suffer as 
a special victim, is, we do not say consecrated, but in 
a peculiar manner deputed to offer himself in sac- 
rifice upon the altar of his own heart in union with 
the sacred Victim of Calvary, and thus to perpetuate 
in a bloody manner the Bloody Sacrifice of the 
Cross. 

In the Priest there are two perfectly distinct 
things; namely, the radical power and the exercise 
of that power. The first of these confers upon him, 
together with the sacerdotal character, the inalien- 
able faculty and power of consecrating the Body and 

269 



270 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

Blood of the Lord. This radical power, belonging 
to the character of his office, exists and always will 
exist in the Priest independently of his own will: 
Tic es sacerdos in aeternum. But it is not so with 
respect to the exercise of the power. In fact, in 
order that the Priest may exercise this power validly 
— that is to say, so as really and efficaciously to 
change the bread and wine which are. placed before 
him into the Body and Blood of our Lord — he must 
not only have the power, but the intention also, the 
will to consecrate that bread and wine. Now, in 
their different degrees, a striking analogy exists 
between the Priest who consecrates the Lord's Body 
and offers It in sacrifice to God the Father, and the 
apostle of suffering, who is a living member of Jesus 
Christ and offers himself in sacrifice in union with 
Jesus Christ. 

In fact, in the Christian who suffers with an 
apostolic end in view, we must distinguish between 
his union with the sacrifice of Jesus, and the exercise 
of that union for the salvation of souls. By the one, 
he sanctifies himself ; by the other he labors for the 
sanctification and salvation of his brethren. By 
means of the one, Jesus bestows His grace upon you 
in abundant measure ; by the other He pours out 
His grace through you upon your neighbor, as by a 
life-bringing channel. 

Undoubtedly, your union with Jesus Christ is 
sufficient for your own perfection and happiness. 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 271 

But it is not sufficient for the spiritual needs of your 
brethren, if you do not apply it to their benefit. Of 
what profit are all the treasures of the rich man to the 
mendicant who implores relief, if the rich man keeps 
all his treasures for himself alone ? It is the same 
with respect to those treasures of grace which the 
Heavenly Spouse bestows upon you in virtue of your 
intimate union with Him. Thus also is it with the 
rich blessings which He showers upon your soul. If 
you wish that sinners, who are the chief mendicants 
of the world, should participate in these graces and 
benedictions which you have received, you must 
direct your intention in their favor and for their 
spiritual necessities. Your intention will be the chan- 
nel through which the grace of conversion will 
reach their souls, when you have obtained it for 
them by the labors you have undergone and the 
sufferings you have endured with patience and with 
love. 

Therefore, if you desire your labors, trials, and 
sufferings to turn to the good of any person in partic- 
ular, to the benefit of certain communities or nations, 
take care to direct your intention in their behalf 
and say to God, at least with your heart : " O my 
God, I offer Thee these pains, labors, and sufferings 
for the salvation of souls, and especially for such 
and such persons." Or say as follows: "O my 
Saviour Jesus, I unite my labors and sufferings to 
Thy labors and Thy sufferings. I offer them to 



272 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

Thee with deep humility for the ends and intentions 
for which Thou didst labor and suffer. I offer them 
to Thee for the Church, for the Sovereign Pontiff, 
for my country, for all the members of my 
family, of this parish," — or for any other intention. 
Renew your intention with great fervor two or three 
times in the course of the day, and it will be suffi- 
cient. 

We do not mean to assert that God, in His infi- 
nite goodness and friendship for a faithful soul, even 
without the knowledge of the soul and without wait- 
ing for her to express her intention, may not grant 
many favors to those near and dear to her. 

In this manner does a tender and generous 
father act toward the friends of his children. But 
it is no less true that God ordinarily wishes His 
friends and servants to co-operate more expressly 
with Him in the distribution of His favors. By this 
means He procures for them opportunities of acquir- 
ing greater merit, He associates them with Himself 
in the exercise of His charity and spiritual fatherhood, 
and He fulfils many other purposes worthy of His infi- 
nite wisdom. Thus does a queen obtain by her 
entreaties special benefits from her princely spouse 
for those of her subjects whom she has taken under 
her special protection. For some, she obtains a 
private pension ; for others, the remission or mitiga- 
tion of some penalty they have incurred. 

Let us then pray and suffer with an intention 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 273- 

from time to time clearly expressed and renewed. 
Let us suffer and pray with confidence, humility, and 
love ; and thus we shall obtain for the Church, for 
our country, for ourselves and others, a great abun- 
dance of grace and spiritual benediction. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

Various Pains and Trials which are endured by Special Vic- 
tims in particular. 

Our readers will permit us to insert in this place 
a short enumeration of the principal trials to which 
the apostles of suffering may be exposed, especially 
if it has pleased God to entrust them with a special 
mission of suffering for the salvation of souls. 

Of all the pains and trials which we suffer, of 
what nature soever they may be, there is not one 
which is not capable of being turned to the spiritual 
benefit of our neighbor. There is nothing but sin 
which is unfit to be offered to God for any purpose 
whatever, because sin is unmixed evil. All other 
things, even the pain and sorrow which is caused by 
sin — remorse, regret, and the like — are susceptible of 
being offered to God and made profitable for the 
salvation of souls. 

We find, then, two kinds of pain or suffering in 
this world ; namely, physical sufferings and moral 
sufferings. The first kind has its seat or cause in the 
body ; the second, in the soul. Bodily sufferings, 
as they affect the less noble part of man, are, all 
other things being equal, less profound, less lacerat- 
ing, and less meritorious. Spiritual sufferings affect 
directly the nobler part of man, and are in their 
nature more deep, more intense, and more meri- 
torious. 
274 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 275 

I. 

Physical Sufferings and Trials. 

These occur in countless variety. Original sin 
is their radical and universal cause. Their proxi- 
mate or immediate causes are either exterior or 
interior. Those of the former class are as follows : 
cold, heat, the various annoyances arising from the 
seasons, contagion or infection in the atmosphere ; 
accidents of a thousand different kinds proceeding 
from natural causes, as the fracture of a limb from the 
accidental fall of some object ; or from voluntary 
causes, such as the austerities which you may impose 
upon yourself in a spirit of penance, or the blows of 
an enemy; sickness, infirmities, hunger, thirst, pri- 
vations of every kind to which we are rendered liable 
by poverty, indigence, reverses of fortune, and the 
like. Such are a few of the numerous external 
causes which act disastrously on the human frame, 
and cause it pain, fatigue, grief, suffering ; all being 
deeply felt by the soul which is united to the body. 

The interior causes which produce bodily suffer- 
ing proceed from the body itself, as from its organi- 
zation, natural weakness, bad constitution ; or from 
extreme fatigue, over-work. They also proceed from 
the moral sufferings of the soul which, being united 
in the closest possible manner to the body, commu- 
nicates to it impressions of sadness, grief, anger, 
excitement, and of all the passions, thus causing the 
body to participate in its own pains and sufferings. 



276 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

O pious souls, who desire to become apostles by 
suffering, accept sufferings, trials, weariness, when 
they fall to your lot, as if our Lord Himself were to 
appear before you and present them to you with His 
own gracious Hand ! They are, in fact, precious 
fragments of the Cross, which He gives you as pledges 
of His love, causing you to attain a closer resem- 
blance to Him. 

This explains the great love which the Saints 
have always shown for bodily sufferings, and partic- 
ularly for sickness. It is related of St. Francis Borgia 
that on one occasion he requested our Lord to send 
him some bodily malady. He offered his prayers 
with such extraordinary fervor that one of his com- 
panions, supposing that he was demanding some 
great favor, besought our Lord to grant the same to 
him also. He was suddenly attacked by severe 
illness, which caused him the acutest suffering. 
Never for an instant imagining that this was the 
favor which the Saint had so earnestly requested, he 
begged St. Francis to intercede with God for his 
recovery, and this our Saint did with ready charity. 

' 'Few people profit by sickness to become 
better," the author of the "Imitation" says: Fauci 
ex infirmitate meliorantur. And yet sickness, of all 
physical sufferings, furnishes us with the most effica- 
cious means of drawing near to God and uniting 
ourselves closely to His Divine Son Who was cruci- 
fied. How many poor sinners have been indebted 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 277 

to some severe illness and the serious reflections it 
brought for their conversion to God, after long years 
of wandering from His service ! How many pious 
people have become more holy upon a bed of sick- 
ness — more patient, more humble, more resigned to 
the holy will of God, more detached from earthly 
things and this present life, so as to love only God 
and the things of eternity. 

Therefore, whoever you are and to whatever 
condition you belong, receive sickness, when it 
seizes you, in a spirit of great faith, humility, resig- 
nation, and love. Thus will you obtain the blessing 
of God upon your family, and upon the community 
to which you belong. And if those surrounding 
you do not understand, as they ought to do, that a 
sick person in a house, or a community, is a suffering 
member of Jesus Christ, and in a certain sense Jesus 
Christ Himself, then bear with patience their forget- 
fulness, their neglect, their ill-humor, carelessness 
and abandonment — in a word, behavior which is 
uncharitable and unworthy of a Christian, and still 
more of a Religious. Just in proportion as you gain 
good to your own soul from all these painful events, 
will the person who serves with so little kindness 
and goodwill the suffering member of Jesus Christ 
have cause to repent of his behavior in your regard. 

There are many Superiors of Religious Com- 
munities who greatly need to direct their attention 
to this important matter — who need to be reminded 



278 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

that they should consider it a special blessing from 
God when He sends a sick person into their house, 
especially so when the sufferer is patient, humble, 
and resigned. They ought especially to exhort the 
sick person to bear his sickness, or infirmity, in a 
spirit of humility, love, and resignation — to offer 
himself in sacrifice, in union with Jesus Christ, for 
the salvation of souls, for the present needs of the 
Church and of his country, and particularly for the 
spiritual benefit of every member of the Community; 
and, if he be in a house devoted to the education of 
youth, for the salvation of the children who attend 
it. And when the hour of death at length arrives, 
it is doubly necessary to encourage him, to exhort 
him paternally to offer up his life with generosity in 
union with Jesus Christ dying, for the salvation of 
mankind and for the intentions which we have 
already mentioned. 

It is thus all those Saints who were founders of 
Religious Orders intended their children to profit by 
sickness — that is, in a spirit of apostolic zeal. Take 
courage then, dear afflicted ones, who have long 
lain upon a bed of sickness, who have been long 
reduced to a state of distressing weakness. Be com- 
forted. You are the suffering members of Jesus 
Christ. Believe this firmly, and act upon it : upon 
you is now devolved the mission of continuing in 
your family, in your community, in your monastery, 
the Sacrifice of Jesus suffering. And you who are 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 279 

in your death-agony, to you is entrusted the mission 
of perpetuating the agony of Jesus in the Garden of 
Olives and His death upon the Cross. Oh, what a 
sublime mission ! Others are called to preach, to 
teach, to devote their lives to the cure of the sick in 
hospitals; that is to say, to perpetuate the life of 
Jesus teaching, preaching, healing the infirm and 
sick. But your mission, your part, is to suffer, to do 
what Jesus, your Divine Head, did all His life long 
from the cradle to the tomb : for, as we before 
observed, Jesus was not always preaching, He was 
not always healing the sick ; but He always prayed, 
.and always suffered. 

Suffer then in union with Him, according to 
His will, in union with His dispositions, in union 
with His intentions and appointed ends. Mingle 
your sufferings with His sufferings, keep yourself 
closely united to Him as the members are united to 
the head and the heart, and as the branches abide in 
the vine. Then will your sufferings and death be 
truly apostolic ; then will you gain souls, many souls 
to God. Then will you be an apostle through suffer- 
ing, in sickness and in death. 

We were once acquainted with a young Relig- 
ious who was a perfect example of self-abnegation 
and of all those virtues which appear in Saints. His 
name was Charles Bertrand. He was born in a small 
town in Velay, educated at the Bishop's seminary of 
Puy, where he edified his fellow-students by the 

7 



280 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

example of all virtues, then proceeding to Avignon, 
he began his novitiate among the Jesuits and took 
the first vows after a probation t)f two years. He 
was afterward sent to Vals to complete his course in 
theology, where he continued to set an example of 
religious perfection, having only one fault, that of 
unsparing severity to himself. This noble defect of 
great minds was yours, O beloved brother ; but it 
does not appear to have displeased our Lord, for He 
granted you His sweetest caresses, His choicest 
graces. And, when the purification of your saintly 
soul was perfected by nine months of severe suffer- 
ing, which you endured with angelic patience, He- 
deigned to summon you to His Presence in heaven, 
accepting your life as a sacrifice of sweet odor for 
that numerous community of brethren who were wit- 
nesses of your last hours. Who can say whether the 
admirable work which was begun in that community 
and which has already spread its kindly influence 
over the world — the Apostleship of Prayer — may not 
owe some part of its existence and marvellous propa- 
gation to your holy influence ? Yourself an apostle of 
suffering, did you not cause that Apostleship of Prayer 
to bring forth fruit by your sufferings and death ? 
Complete your task in the abodes of bliss, and be 
now the protecting angel of the Apostleship of Suffer- 
ing ; bless that work which is the completion of the 
first, which sprang from the same source, in that 
same spot where the sweet Virgin of Puy, Notre- 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 281 

Dame de France, delights to bestow her maternal 
blessing. 

II. 
Moral Sufferings and Trials. 

These are of innumerable kinds, and like those 
of the body they all have for their root and universal 
cause, original sin. But our Lord in His infinite 
mercy vouchsafes to turn them all, like our bodily 
sufferings, to our true good — that is, to the expiation 
of our offences, to our progress in perfection by 
moulding us into a more perfect resemblance to Jesus 
Christ, and finally to the increasing of our merits in 
time and our glory in eternity. 

Moral trials and sufferings have their seat in the 
soul itself, and thence they re-act upon the body. 
Physical trials and sufferings have their seat or cause 
in the body, whence they re-act upon the soul. We 
have already said that as the soul is superior to the 
body and more noble in its nature, the sufferings 
which directly affect it, that is, which have their seat 
in the soul, are by far the most painful. This is the 
reason why, in the spiritual life, interior sufferings 
are considered far more difficult to endure than exte- 
rior sufferings. From this, also, we may form some 
idea of the intensity of the suffering of the holy Soul 
of Jesus in the Garden of Olives, and even during 
His whole life : for his Soul was always in a state of 
suffering, and the Cross was ever planted in His 
loving Heart. 



282 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

The sufferings of the soul like those of the body 
have many different causes, some of which are exter- 
nal, the others internal. The first are those which 
come from without. Of this kind are all those events 
in our life which cause sadness or perturbation of 
soul, such as loss of property or employment, of rank 
and honors, reverse of fortune, abandonment by 
friends, death of relations, public calamities and 
revolutions, domestic troubles, and the like. 

The internal causes are those which reside in 
the soul itself and which give rise to a thousand 
fears, apprehensions, and sufferings. As long as we 
remain in this life of trial, our soul will be subject 
to many tribulations which arise from its natural 
weakness of comprehension, of will, or of affection. 
There are, in fact, in the constitution of the soul as 
in the constitution of the body certain weak parts, 
if we may use the expression, which give rise to 
infirmities and spiritual diseases. Thus we often 
meet with souls weak both in mind and will, a per- 
petual torment to themselves by creating difficulties 
and conjuring up fears. Thus our past faults and 
the consequent remorse, our regrets, bitter remem- 
brances, wasted affections, blasted hopes, the uncer- 
tainty of a threatening future, are so many causes 
which depress our minds to a greater or less extent 
and give rise to moral sufferings of almost infinite 
variety. 

The apostle of suffering who desires to turn 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 283 

these interior trials to profit for the glory of God and 
the salvation of men, must accept and endure them 
with the same disposition as our Lord in the Garden 
of Olives, when He exclaimed : "My soul is sor- 
rowful even unto death. ' ' Tristis est anima meet, usque 
ad mortem ; or on the Cross, when He cried : " My 
God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken Me. ' ' Deus, 
Deus meus, ut quid dereliquisti Me. This is the best 
way of softening our troubles and also of rendering 
them efficacious for our own spiritual benefit and 
for the good of others. 



CHAPTER XIV. 
Of Interior Trials. 

We have spoken in the preceding Chapters of 
the trials or sufferings of the soul. We think it 
necessary, however, for the consolation of those whom 
God visits with peculiar suffering, to enter into some 
further particulars and to treat more directly of what 
are called in the spiritual life interior trials. At all 
times, but perhaps in our own days more than ever 
before, the Priest who is a director of the consciences 
of others frequently meets with souls exposed to these 
interior trials, who seem to bear the Cross unceas- 
ingly in their hearts. As this peculiar state of trial, 
when endured with resignation, is capable of becom- 
ing very meritorious to the sufferers themselves and 
very beneficial to those on whose behalf their suffer- 
ings are offered, we propose to make, it the subject of 
a special Chapter. 

The state of a person who is enduring those 
interior trials of which we are here about to speak, is 
very different from that of such as have no other 
moral sufferings to endure than those to which every 
Christian, as a man, is naturally subject. To these 
we are all exposed, in a greater or less degree, 
according to the conditions more or less painful in 
which our soul may happen to be. This last con- 
dition, in fact, is in nothing removed from the 

284 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 285 

ordinary course of things. Given human nature 
such as it is and events as they generally are, it is 
impossible but that every man, and consequently 
every Christian, should have to suffer moral trials of 
greater or less intensity and of more or less dura- 
tion. 

The state of such souls as are called upon to 
endure interior trials, in the sense in which we here 
understand the phrase, is a supernatural state in 
which God intervenes in an especial manner — first, 
to procure more frequent and trying occasions of suf- 
fering to these souls ; and, secondly, to grant them 
more abundant graces, so that they may be strength- 
ened to bear those internal trials courageously and 
may thus obtain greater merit for themselves and for 
their brethren by uniting themselves more closely to 
the holy Soul of Jesus. Considered in this light, 
this state appears to be a special favor conferred by 
God, which should be highly esteemed and made a 
subject of lively gratitude and thanksgiving. Every 
state, painful as it may be, in which God places the 
soul for the purpose of communicating to it a more 
perfect degree of love and resemblance to His 
Divine Son, ought to be regarded as an extraordinary 
favor. Now, in the spiritual life we know of no state 
more proper to procure such great blessings to a soul 
than the state of trial of which we are speaking. 
For if it be true (as no one can venture to doubt) 
that suffering borne patiently for the love of God is 



286 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

the shortest and surest road by which to arrive at 
perfection, then must this be still more true of those 
interior sufferings which have their seat in the soul, 
and which are consequently more noble and more 
meritorious. 

We may, in fact, consider these interior trials 
either in the light of a reward on the part of God, 
or of a chastisement ; or simply as a particular mode 
of operation by means of which God gradually disen- 
gages the soul from earthly affections and interests 
and renders it more supernatural and divine. In all 
these different cases, interior trials are a special favor 
from the hand of God. 

This is very evident in all those cases in which 
they are sent as a reward, and this very frequently 
happens. It is written, "Because thou wast pleasing 
to God, therefore temptation was sent to prove thee. ' ' 
Quia acceptus eras Deo, necesse fitit ut tentatio pro 
baret te. (Tobias, xii.) These are the words of the 
Angel Raphael to Tobias. And it is said elsewhere, 
in speaking of the just man : " God gave him the 
opportunity of a great combat that he might have th e 
glory of victory." Certamen forte dedit illi ut vin- 
ceret. (Wisdom, x.) 

In support of these words of Holy Scripture, we 
might cite a great number of examples to show that 
interior trials of this kind are frequently sent to the 
most saintly souls in recompense for their fidelity, as 
a means to enable them to attain closer union with 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 287 

God and to gain more perfect resemblance to Jesus 
Christ. To convince yourself of this truth, you need 
only read the lives of those Saints whom God has led 
more particularly by this way of sorrows. And not 
only so, but many of those generous souls have 
earnestly requested that God would be pleased to 
lead them, for His love, through this thorny path of 
multiplied tribulations. Many of the Saints obtained 
this favor in such full measure that poor human 
nature shrinks from the contemplation of their suffer- 
ings. Such, amongst others, were St. Mary Mag- 
dalene of Pazzi, and St. Catharine of Sienna, who, 
having offered themselves as victims for the Church, 
endured the most incredible inward trials. 

Considered in the light of chastisements, interior 
trials are likewise great favors from the hand of God. 
Many kinds of chastisement are simply the indica- 
tion and expression of His tenderest, burning love. 
A father loves his son more than he loves his servant. 
Yet how many faults he leaves unnoticed in the 
servant, which he would reprove most severely in the 
case of his son. And this suggests to us the com- 
parison of the tree which the husbandman prunes 
most carefully that it may bring forth more fruit, 
while he leaves some other tree wholly untouched. 
Once more, consult the lives of the Saints and see if 
it be not true that God, by means of these trials, 
often chastises the souls of those who are most dear 
to Him, just because He loves them so tenderly. 
7* 



288 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

He delights to cast these well-beloved souls into this 
purgatory of sorrow in order to draw them nearer 
and unite them more closely to Himself, when some 
slight faults or habits of imperfection have disturbed 
that sacred union. Scruples, for example, which are 
a most distressing kind of interior trial and from 
which many of these saintly souls have suffered in a 
greater or less degree, are sometimes a chastisement 
inflicted by God upon His faithful servants, in token 
of His great love for them and as a means of oblig- 
ing them to cast themselves into His arms. Now, is 
it not evident that such a procedure on the part of 
God is a great favor, an unspeakable grace? Non 
fecit taliter omni nationi. No, God does not grant 
to every soul of man such special marks of predilec- 
tion as this. 

Lastly, when interior sufferings are sent to any 
soul as a pure trial, — that is, as an instrument 
designed to work supernaturally in that soul and 
thus to wean it altogether from every earthly element 
so that it may be more perfectly united to God — 
then is it still evident that they rank among God's 
most precious favors, being a peculiar mark of His 
predilection. They are a refining vessel of extreme 
power and efficacy, in which the soul is quickly 
purified as gold is purified in the furnace. For in 
this order of supernatural things, just as in the order 
of nature and of art, there are diverse operations, 
trials of different kinds, which the faithful soul must 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 289 

undergo before it can arrive at that degree of per- 
fection in which the Divine Workman will transform 
it into the image and resemblance of the Son of 
God. 

To enable us to comprehend the necessity of 
these mysterious operations in the souls which God 
calls to perfection, we must remember that by 
original sin human nature was cast into the pro- 
foundest depths of abasement, weakness, and degra- 
dation. The grace of holy baptism, which gives to 
the child the character of Christian and makes him 
a child of God and a member of Jesus Christ, 
removes from him the stain of original sin. But it 
leaves in the soul a foundation of wretchedness and 
corruption which, when the child becomes a man, 
will be the cause of perpetual warfare and will give 
him occasion unto death to practise the most exalted 
virtues, but more especially patience. Therefore 
every man, even after he has received the grace of 
holy baptism, still has within him some remains of 
the fall of our first parents — namely, enfeebled 
reasoning powers, a will weakened and inclined to 
evil, depraved senses which give rise to concupis- 
cence, and passions ever ready to rebel against the 
control of reason. 

We now understand why God, before He can 
enter into a more substantial and intimate union 
with the soul of man, makes that soul pass through 
various preparatory stages of trial and many sue- 



290 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

cessive operations, which are intended to purify it 
more fully, and to fit it more completely for the 
divine union. It thus happens that these trials are 
generally the preludes of a more abundant commu- 
nication of Himself and of those favors which He 
proposes to confer upon the soul by raising it to a 
higher degree of contemplation and of union with 
God. For it is only on condition of passing through 
these painful stages of trial, to a greater or less 
extent, that the soul can hope to be raised to so 
desirable a consummation. 

Doubtless God is free to bestow His gifts 
according to His own will, by one act of which He 
could, in an instant, raise the soul from the lowest 
abodes of this world to the sublimest region of the 
third heaven. But it is not thus that He usually 
proceeds in the ordinary ways of His Providence, 
which are full of harmony and wisdom. He takes 
man just as he is, just as original sin has made him, 
just as his own actual sins have made him ; and He 
labors in this barren ground as the laborer ploughs 
up the fallow field, sparing no pains to render it 
fruitful ; that is to say, to make it fit to receive the 
divine seed of eternal life and bring forth fruit a 
hundredfold. Just as the laborer, who before he 
sows his fields, begins by burning up or rooting out 
the briers which encumber the ground, and by 
ploughing deep furrows in the soil ; so does the 
Divine Husbandman of souls when He finds a barren, 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 291 

unfruitful soil, — that is to say, a Christian soul full 
of sins and faults ; or the soul of a Religious full of 
imperfections ; or the soul of a Priest lukewarm and 
indifferent, — begin strongly to work in that soul by 
burning up the briers and thorns ; — that is, He 
destroys all sin and imperfection, the inordinate love 
of praise, of worldly honors, or of the comforts and 
luxuries which belong to an earthly and sensual life. 

But this is not sufficient. As it is His will to 
lift up this soul, He is not content with saving it 
from the corrupting influences of sin. He goes still 
farther than this. He penetrates to the very depths 
of its nature to purify, to soften, and to rectify it ; 
He pours into the soul the vivifying influence of His 
grace ; in a word, He deifies it by union with Jesus 
Christ. There are souls in which this union with 
Jesus Christ is raised, by this mysterious course of 
purification, to such a degree of perfection that they 
feel the life of Jesus Christ in them and their life in 
Jesus Christ. They can say with perfect truth, in 
the words of St. Paul: " 1 live, yet not I, but Jesus 
Christ liveth in me." Vivo ego, jam non ego, vivit 
vero in me Christus. 

In order to arrive at any degree of this intimate 
union with God, — in order for the soul to receive 
any special and superabundant communication of the 
Divine life, — it must ordinarily pass through the fur- 
nace of tribulation, through this purifying fire of 
trial and interior suffering, which fits it to receive the 



292 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

operation of grace and to produce its proper fruits. 
Hence it appears that these interior trials are of great 
benefit to the soul, and that they are one of the most 
powerful means in the spiritual life for causing it to 
reach a pitch of solid holiness and close union with 
God, provided that the soul be careful to bear its 
trials with patience, humility, and love, in union 
with Jesus Christ, and more especially in union with 
the trials and interior sufferings of His Sacred 
Heart. 

Let us not fail to add that, if to these disposi- 
tions be joined an apostolic motive of action, — that 
is to say, if these interior trials be endured for the 
salvation of souls, — then access with confidence to 
God will be obtained, and a greater measure be 
secured of the precious graces of salvation and per- 
fection for others than could be gained in any other 
way. God is generally pleased to grant to saintly 
souls which undergo these tribulations, peculiar inte- 
rior graces for other souls which He designs to lead 
on to perfection. In a word, we believe that those 
persons who are most fitted to exercise the apostleship 
of suffering with profit, are those whom God sees fit 
to draw into closer resemblance to His beloved Son 
by leading them along the path of interior trials ; 
and still more so if these trials are so intense and so 
long continued, as to become a species of agony. 
This occurs in the case of many souls on whom God 
the Father is pleased to confer some special features 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 293 

of resemblance to His agonizing Son. We shall 
speak further of this particular condition in one of 
the following Chapters, as the consideration of it 
may be of great utility in promoting the salvation 
and perfection of souls. But it will assist our com- 
prehension of the subject, if we speak in the first 
place of the agonies which were endured by the holy 
Soul of Jesus. 



CHAPTER XV. 

Of the Agonies endured by trie Holy Soul of Jesus. 

Our Lord Jesus Christ, during the thirty-three 
years of His mortal life, was continually in the state 
of a Victim. His holy Soul, being the principal 
subject of this immolation, was a soul ever suffering, 
constantly given up to desolation, always more or less 
enduring agony. 

The great love borne by Him to His Father 
caused Him to desire most ardently to prove His love 
by the greatest sacrifices. And as nothing could 
restrain this desire of His Heart, He satisfied it to 
the full by sinking it into complete desolation, being 
overwhelmed with shame— -saturatus opprobriis — - 
plunging into the flood of that bloody baptism with 
which He desired so ardently to be baptized, when 
He exclaimed, Baptismo habeo baptizari ; et quo modo 
coarctor usquedum perficiatur — " I have a baptism 
wherewith to be baptized ; and how am I straitened 
until it be accomplished." 

Surrounded as we now are by the chill atmos- 
phere of this age, we are almost unable to compre- 
hend these holy excesses of the love of our God. 
Yet the truth remains ; and for this reason we do not 
think ourselves too bold in asserting that Jesus under- 
went not only the Agony in the Garden of Olives, 
but also what we may venture to call the continual 
294 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 295 

agony of His whole mortal life. We do not presume 
to say that the holy Soul of Jesus was given up dur- 
ing the whole course of His life to such desolation 
as he endured in the Garden of Olives. But we 
mean that this desolation was habitually, or almost 
habitually, so intense and so profound as to merit 
the title of a kind of prolonged agony, having its 
final and intensest crisis in that which He endured 
in Gethsemani and on Calvary. 

We may find some very remarkable pages on 
this affecting subject in a book recently published 
under episcopal approbation, 1 in which a holy 
Religious relates with all simplicity the words which 
she heard uttered by the mouth of our Blessed Lord 
Himself. The elevation and precision of language 
in which this humble child of the people, a simple 
Lay Sister, explains the most sublime dogmas of our 
holy religion, leave us in no doubt whatever as to 
the truth of her affirmations on the subject which we 
have selected from her writings. 

" On the evening of Holy Thursday," says this 
faithful handmaid of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, " I 
knelt down to offer up my prayers to God, but I was 
unable to pray. 

" My mind was filled with the recollection of 
the Passion of my Saviour. I felt, as it were, an 
irresistible attraction to follow Jesus and to pray 

1 Life and Works of Marie Lataste, approved by the 
Bishop of Aire (in the English series of Mr. Healy Thompson). 



296 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

with Him before His Passion. I beheld Him 
separated from His Apostles, gone aside from them a 
little way, and prostrate with His face to the ground ; 
and I heard Him cry : ' My God, let this Chalice 
pass from Me : nevertheless let Thy will, not Mine, 
be done.' I drew near to Jesus to wipe away the 
sweat which poured abundantly from His forehead ; 
and He said : ' You come to Me, My child, when 
all others have forsaken Me. I thank you for it.' 
'Lord,' I replied, 'how much Thou sufferest.' 
* My child, you are unable to comprehend it. I 
feel at this instant all the sufferings of My Passion: 
and those pious Christians who keep My sufferings at 
this time in remembrance, pay Me honor and vener- 
ation for what they call the Agony of the Garden. 

" 'The Son of Man, My child, endured several 
agonies. Do you know, in fact, what an agony is ? 
Agony is the strong sinking away of life and the 
resistance of a living being to the approaching 
power of death. You will now be able to see that I 
have endured not one, but many agonies. 

" ' The first took place at the very moment of 
My conception ; the second, in My mother's womb ; 
the third, on the day of My birth ; the fourth, in the 
Garden of Olives ; and the fifth, upon the Cross. 

" ' My first agony took place at the moment of 
My conception. Before that time, I possessed the 
Divine life only. I was the Son of God, the Eternal 
Word. But I had caused My voice to be heard, say- 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 297 

ing to the Father : " Behold, I come !" And I then 
came to God My Father, not only by the return of 
My Divine Person to Himself, in His bosom, but by 
the abasement of My Divinity, of My Divine life, 
which I enclosed in the Humanity that I took in the 
womb of My mother Mary. This was an abasement 
which your mind can never comprehend. There 
was a strife between My Divine life and that human 
life which I was about to assume ; this was the true 
agony of My Divine life ; for, My daughter, humili- 
ation such as this was an agony indeed. It could 
not rob Me of My Divinity, but it was enough to 
crush and overwhelm My Humanity, had not My 
Divine power inspired it with strength to receive and 
unite itself to My Divinity. 

" ' My second agony took place in My mother's 
womb. In the eternal bosom of My heavenly Father 
I was surrounded with His glory. I was the eternal 
reflection of that glory. I was God in God, God 
distinct from God and God united to God, God 
eternally proceeding from God, and God dwelling 
eternally in God. But in the womb of Mary I was 
compelled to abase, to veil, and almost to annihilate 
My eternal glory. I possessed in God a life glorious 
and divine; in Mary I possessed a life obscure, 
unknown, capable of pain. My glory as God cannot 
either disappear or suffer annihilation : My Divine 
life cannot be taken from Me, for I should cease to 
exist. But to unite this Divine life with the human 



298 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

life and to preserve it in this union, is to abase and 
annihilate it as far as this is possible. It is to place 
it in a state of perpetual agony until the hour when 
My Humanity shall dwell full of glory in the bosom 
of the Divinity. 

"'These two agonies were not true agonies, 
because they concerned especially and in the first 
place My Divinity. I have revealed them to you in 
order that you may dwell upon them sometimes in 
spirit and, beholding the humiliation and abasement 
of My Divinity, you may learn to abase and humili- 
ate yourself. 

." ' My third agony commenced on the day of 
My birth. My life was, in fact, to be an expiation, 
a continued course of suffering, ending only in My 
death. My whole life was passed in suffering, and 
daily did My sufferings bring Me nearer to death. 
I was born in poverty. Eight days after my birth I 
shed My blood for the first time ; forty days after- 
ward I offered Myself as Victim ; and soon after I 
was compelled to fly from the wrath of an earthly 
sovereign. I labored after this with Mary and 
Joseph in our abode at Nazareth. I fasted forty days 
in the desert. For the space of three years I wearied 
Myself in preaching the Gospel to the poor, healing 
the sick, instructing My Apostles ; and all this for the 
purpose of hastening My death upon the Tree of the 
Cross. 

11 'I lived thirty-three years like a Victim pre- 



THE AP0STLESH1P OF SUFFERING. 299 

pared for death, expecting death, even desiring 
death for the salvation of mankind. 

"'The state in which you behold Me at this 
hour is My fourth agony. My Divinity gives Me a 
clear view of all the torments of My Passion, of all 
the crimes of men which I am to expiate, of the 
expiation which will be useless to immense numbers, 
because they will refuse to profit by it ; and the sight 
of all these things would deprive Me of life, but that 
I keep it in order to endure, in their full reality, 
those sufferings which are required of Me by the 
justice of My Father. 

"'And the fifth and last agony, My child, is 
the agony of the Cross. The cruelty of men had 
exhausted itself upon Me. They had nailed Me to 
the Cross ; they had given Me vinegar and gall to 
drink. My veins had poured forth their blood 
almost to the last drop. The prophecies were all 
accomplished. I cried with a loud voice, and com- 
mended My Spirit into the hands of My Father.' " 

It will be unnecessary, after this extract, to 
insist further upon the sorrows, the continued agonies, 
endured by the holy Soul of Jesus during the thirty- 
three years of His mortal life. As our Blessed Lord 
Himself suffered continually, it is not wonderful that 
He should summon certain souls to follow Him as 
closely as possible in that sorrowful way of tribula- 
tion, of continued agonies. And the more com- 
pletely the lives of these privileged persons are filled 



300 THE APOSTLESH1P OF SUFFERING. 

with anguish and bitterness, the more abundantly 
are they enriched with precious gifts and abundant 
graces. God generally makes use of them for the 
fulfilment of the holiest and most important missions, 
with regard to the general economy of redemption, 
to the general good of the Church, to the salvation 
and perfection of souls on a most extensive scale. 

Finally, if they are faithful to the end in their 
mission, then will these souls, beloved of God and 
of Jesus Christ His Divine Son, occupy places of 
honor in Heaven and shine with glory unspeakable. 
But their great felicity will consist in that heavenly 
sweetness which will eternally replace in their souls 
the bitterness of sorrow which was their continual 
portion upon earth. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

Of the Agonies endured by certain Souls whom Jesus Christ 

associates more particularly with His Life of 

Agony and Crucifixion. 

The subject which we propose to discuss in the 
present Chapter is applicable to certain fervent souls 
who are associated by our Lord in a special manner 
with those interior agonies to which His holy Soul 
was delivered up during the course of His mortal 
life, and more especially in the Garden of Olives and 
on the Cross. This state of agony of the soul, is, in 
fact, an exceptional state in the spiritual life, and 
should be regarded as the effect of God's particular 
permission. 

It may be even said that these conditions of 
extraordinary internal suffering correspond to those 
extraordinary conditions of divine love and of divine 
union, which are assigned by the masters of the 
spiritual life as so many high degrees of perfection. 
In fact, perfection consists in union with God by 
charity; and perfection is greater in proportion as 
this union is closer and more perfect. The author 
of the "Imitation" observes, that God visits, or 
unites Himself to the soul, in two ways — namely, by 
consolation and by desolation. In the first case, the 
soul is full of joy, and thrills with conscious happi- 
ness. The love for God is then &love of consolation ; 

301 



302 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

and the union which proceeds from it is consequently 
a union of consolatio7i also. But in the second case, 
— that is to say, when God visits the soul by desola- 
tion, — the soul is sorrowful, and suffers under the 
impression of the trial, patiently accepted, but still 
most deeply felt. Its love to God is then most real, 
but it is a love of desolation, and the union which 
results from it is also consequently a very real union, 
but a union of desolation. 

We do not say that this union is not at bottom 
a happy one, although it is founded in desolation ; 
but happiness is then felt only in an unalterable dis- 
position of patience and peaceful endurance, which 
retain the balance of the soul amidst the storms 
which agitate it. So in a vessel, hurried on by a 
powerful wind, the sails and rigging are in the great- 
est commotion, whilst the hull is almost unmoved. 
In this manner also did the holy Soul of our Blessed 
Saviour, that perfect example of the tried and suffer- 
ing Christian, enjoy the blessedness of the intuitive 
vision and the beatific union, whilst the inferior part 
of His Soul was overwhelmed with the most intense 
desolation, bitter grief, and feelings of mortal 
agony. 

As, then, the consolation which results from the 
exercise of what we call the union of consolation, is 
sweet and comforting in proportion to the intimacy 
and perfection of that union, so in the exercise of 
what we call the union of desolation the intimacy and 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 303 

perfection of the union proportionably increases the 
bitterness and afflictions of the desolation. The 
reason of this is very evident. In the first case Jesus 
Christ unites the soul to His joys; in the second, 
to His sorrows. In the first case, Jesus manifests 
Himself to the soul as the fountain of all consola- 
tion ; in the second, as an abyss of desolation — as a 
Man of Sorrows — in a word, as a Victim. In the 
first condition, every feeling of sadness disappears 
from the soul ; it is completely absorbed in the joy 
of drawing the divine life from the fountains of the 
Saviour : Haurietis aquas in gaudio de fontibus Sal- 
vatoris. In the second, although the soul is funda- 
mentally at peace, because it is united to God, yet, 
as it is particularly with the sorrows of the holy 
Victim of Calvary that this union is effected, the 
soul is completely given over to desolation, and 
plunged in the bitterest grief, as was Jesus in His 
Agony. 

If you inquire which of these two states of mind 
is better in practice, our reply is easily made. Of 
all the states in which the members of Jesus Christ 
can be placed in the course of their spiritual life, the 
most desirable is that which communicates to the 
soul the most perfect resemblance to its Divine Head 
while He was on earth. Now, we have already 
observed that the life of Jesus Christ upon earth was 
a life of continual suffering, almost a perpetual 
agony. He therefore resembles Jesus Christ the 

8 



304 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

most closely, who is most intimately associated with 
Him in His continual sufferings and agony, by the 
most perfect love. And here, again, you pause, and 
ask: "Are there then such souls to be found to 
whom our Lord allots this state of perpetual agony ?" 
If you understand the word agony in its most exten- 
sive meaning of suffering and desolation, we must 
answer, "No, our Lord does not permit any soul to 
endure this state of desolation perpetually ; but He 
does permit some souls to endure this state at inter- 
vals of greater or less duration, although He does 
not suffer them to be habitually reduced to an 
extremity of grief. And not only so, but He causes 
them to be constantly under the weight of some 
interior Cross more or less hard to bear. 

Examples of this are to be found continually; 
and when a director of consciences meets with one 
of these souls who are thus marked out for immola- 
tion by our Lord, he may say without any fear of 
self-deception: "I see before me a person who is 
most tenderly loved by my Blessed Lord, in whom 
He has resolved to reproduce a living image of Him- 
self, of His life of crucifixion. I will' bestow my 
utmost care and attention upon this soul, that it may 
respond abundantly to the designs of God regarding 
it, and that the souls of others who may be destined 
to attain salvation and perfection by the means of 
this chosen soul may not be deprived of its powerful 
assistance." For God never places any soul in this 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 305 

most blessed state for its own good alone, and the 
words of St. Teresa on this subject are perfectly 
applicable to such a case : 

" I am persuaded that the person who strives to 
attain to the height of perfection (and the state of 
which we have been speaking is the shortest way of 
reaching it), will not go alone to Heaven ; but God 
will provide him as a brave captain with many 
followers who will march to heaven under his 
escort." 

Consider yourselves most happy then, O favored 
souls, whom God the Father is pleased to bring into 
such close resemblance to His agonizing Son. 
Bless the Lord for His unspeakable favor which is 
greater than any other gift of our Lord to His best 
friends. Suffer not yourselves to be discouraged ; 
let not a thought enter your hearts in words like 
these : " The Cross is too heavy for me ; I can bear 
it no longer." Such language as this is not inspired 
by God, but by your enemy the devil, who is jealous 
of the favor which you enjoy ; or by your human 
nature, which is ready to sink from a wretched feel- 
ing of weariness and exhaustion. Have recourse at 
these times to Him Who laid this Cross upon you : 
say to Him : O my sweet Jesus, I do not refuse Thy 
Cross. I do not reject the share in Thy bitter 
Chalice which Thou dost offer me. But Lord, Thou 
knowest my weakness ; aid me, sustain me, strengthen 
me, that I may not sink under the weight of my 



306 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

Cross, but may bear it after Thee with perseverance 
and courage even to the summit of Mount Calvary, 
there to be crucified and to die with Thee for the 
good of those souls for whose salvation Thou didst 
shed all Thy precious Blood. Amen. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

The intimate Communion which subsists between the Apostle- 
ship of Prayer and the Apostleship of Suffering. 

We observed, in the very commencement of 
this little work, and we must here repeat it again : 
Between the Apostleship of Prayer and the apostle- 
ship of suffering there exists a close tie, a most inti- 
mate connection — so intimate, indeed, that it may 
well be asked how it can be possible to separate 
them from each other, if we expect to gain really 
important and solid results for the salvation of souls 
and the regeneration of the world. We are firmly 
convinced that the apostleship of prayer and the 
apostleship of suffering must ever walk hand in hand, 
just as suffering and prayer were ever most closely 
united in the life of the Son of God. Of what value, 
indeed, are the prayers and sufferings of Christians, 
the members of Jesus Christ, unless they are a con- 
tinuation and prolongation of the prayers and suffer- 
ings of Jesus, our Divine Head ? Now our Blessed 
Lord prayed and suffered continually ; and His 
prayers and sufferings were continually directed to 
the fulfilment of the mission which He was to 
accomplish upon earth, even the salvation of the 
human race. 

It is, then, in the Person of Jesus Christ praying 
and suffering for the salvation of souls, that every 
8* 307 



308 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

Christian who desires to co-operate in that great 
work by his own prayers and sufferings must seek for 
his strength and his example. The more closely he 
can approach the divine example — that is, the more 
inseparably he unites prayer and suffering in his own 
person as Christ united them — the more perfectly 
will he fulfil his apostleship and the more souls will 
he gain to Jesus Christ. 

This enables us to understand why those men 
who led the most apostolic lives, who brought about 
the most extensive results in their labors for the con- 
version of the nations, were all men most eminent 
for the spirit of prayer and of self-sacrifice. St. Paul, 
St. Bernard, St. Francis Xavier, St. Teresa, all 
possessed this twofold spirit in an eminent degree, 
besides many others whom we have not mentioned. 
Suffering and prayer have communicated such mar- 
vellous fecundity to all the labors undertaken by 
them for the glory of God and the salvation of souls. 

We may even go farther than this, in order to 
explain more fully the relative importance of the 
apostleship of suffering. In the great work of our 
redemption it was placed by the Saviour of the world 
in the foremost rank of importance and usefulness. 
Although it is true that our Lord Jesus Christ could 
have effected the salvation of the human race by the 
very least of His prayers, yet it is no less true that 
it was by His death and Passion that He did actually, 
and as it were officially, accomplish that great work ; 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 309 

so that — as theologians affirm, in their explanations 
of the teaching of St. Paul — it was the Blood of 
Jesus Christ, shed upon the Cross, that was the 
immediate cause of the redemption of mankind. 
The words of the great Apostle are as follow . Sine 
sanguinis effusione non fit remissio — " Without shed- 
ding of blood there is no remission." (Hebrews, x.). 
And elsewhere, in a still more explicit manner : In 
quo habemus redemptionem per sanguinem ejus, remis- 
sionem peccatorum — "In Whom we have redemption 
through His blood, remission of sins.'''' (Colossians, i.). 

For the same reason St. Paul in another place 
announces, in a manner most solemn and impressive, 
this mystery of God : Christum oportuit pati — 
"Christ must needs have suffered." (Acts, xvii.) 
He intended to show us that our salvation was made 
to depend upon the Passion and Death of the Son of 
God ; that God the Father, being justly irritated 
against us, imposed this as the price of our deliver- 
ance from the slavery of sin and from the tyranny 
of the devil : Christum oportuit pati. He does not 
say that it was necessary that Christ should do this 
or that thing during His mortal life, but that He 
should suffer. 

Christ is our High Priest, and one of the prin- 
cipal functions of the High Priest consists in inter- 
ceding — that is, in praying for the people. And 
Jesus Christ is also our Prophet and Teacher. He 
gives Himself this title on several occasions in the 



310 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

Gospels ; and St. Paul declares that it is from Him 
that we have received the truth, and that to His 
supreme authority, as Teacher and Master, we must 
apply to hear the words of truth. Apparuit enim 
gratia Dei Salvatoris nostri omnibus hominibus 
erudiens nos. (Titus, ii.). Why, then, does St. Paul 
content himself with saying, Christum oportuit pati ? 
"Christ 7iiust needs have suffered." This is the 
reason. While fully acknowledging that the prayers 
and teaching of the Son of God acted in co-opera- 
tion with His sufferings in the work of our salvation, 
He well knew that it was the will of God the Father, 
in His justice and love, that our salvation should 
depend, as to its immediate cause, on the Blood of 
His Son, shed for us upon Calvary — on His Suffer- 
ings, His Passion, and His Death. 

O fervent and devout Christians, who are ready 
to suffer anything to win souls to Christ, never forget 
these words of St. Paul, so short, but so pregnant 
with divine meaning: Christum oportuit pati — "It 
was needful that Christ should suffer /" as if St. Paul 
wished to say : It was not enough that Christ should 
be willing to redeem mankind by praying for them 
and instructing them ; it was furthermore necessary, 
and above all, that He should suffer and die for 
them. This was the price of our redemption ; and 
on this condition the eternal decree of God the 
Father made to depend the salvation of the whole 
world. 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 311 

Oportuit. It was necessary. And how can you 
then be permitted to assist in this great work unless 
you are willing to suffer in your turn ? It was neces- 
sary that Christ should, not pray only, but suffer 
also, to gain souls to God ; and do you hope to gain 
them without suffering? It is doubtless true that 
when you are praying for the salvation of your 
brethren, Jesus Christ unites the virtue of His own 
sufferings to your prayers, and thus renders them 
fruitful. But forget not that neither in the applica- 
tion to mankind of the merits of the Redeemer, nor 
in the plan of redemption itself, has God two 
different ways of proceeding. 

It was His will that we should be redeemed by 
the Cross of Christ ; and it is by means of the Cross 
that He proceeds to make to each particular soul 
the application of the merits of the sufferings of 
Christ for its salvation. And therefore the Apostle 
Paul, to whom the great mission of explaining to 
men that sublime doctrine of salvation by the Cross 
of Christ was especially confided, concludes his 
instruction in these words : Adimpleo ea quae desunt 
passionum Christi in came mea — "/ fill up those 
things that are wanting of the sufferings of Christ in 
my oody." He means to say to us : It is not enough 
that my Saviour has suffered for me : it is necessary, 
in order to participate in the redeeming virtue of 
His blood, that I should formally apply it to myself 
by suffering with Him. And did not our Blessed 



312 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

Lord Himself inculcate the same truth long before 
the time of His Apostle in these well-known words, 
which leave those without excuse who expect to 
attain Heaven without suffering : Si quis vult post Me 
venire, abneget semetipsum, tollat crucem suam, et 
sequatur Me ? ' i If any man will come after Me, let 
him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow 
Me." 

From the preceding reflections we may con- 
clude — first, that the apostleship of prayer should 
not be generally separated in practice from the 
apostleship of suffering. 

Secondly. The apostleship of prayer, how 
extensive soever its field of action may be, however 
extensive its results, will only attain, to the realiza- 
tion of a part of its aim, especially in what relates to 
the religious regeneration of modern society, if it be 
not carefully and closely united to the apostleship of 
suffering. 

Thirdly. The addition of sacrifice, of self- 
immolation, — in a word, of the apostleship of suffer- 
ing, — is one of the most indispensable conditions of 
life and fruitfulness for the apostleship of prayer. 

Fourthly. In consequence of these facts, the 
apostleship of suffering ought not to be regarded as 
a subordinate element, or even as a complement 
merely, of the apostleship of prayer ; but rather as a 
vital element which will increase a hundredfold its 
own life and consequently augment its action. 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 313 

Under this, as well as under every other aspect, the 
prayers and sufferings of Christians, members of 
Jesus Christ, ought to resemble the prayers and 
sufferings of Jesus, our Divine Head. Now although 
the prayers and all other works of Jesus Christ were, 
by their own unassisted power, capable of meriting 
our salvation, yet all were referred, and as it were 
subordinated, by Him to His one last Sacrifice upon 
the Cross, — that is, to His Passion and Death, which 
according to God's decree was to be the final act of 
expiation, reparation, and redemption of the human 
race : in other words, the redemption itself. 

Springing direct from the Heart of Jesus as a 
flower from its parent stem, the Apostleship of Prayer 
has already done much good in the world. We 
doubt not, rather we are most fully convinced, that 
these good and beneficial results will be multiplied 
a hundredfold since, in the daily offering of this 
holy League of the Sacred Heart, the apostleship of 
suffering, springing in like manner from the Agony of 
the Sacred Heart, is united to the Apostleship of 
Prayer, vivifying it with divine influences and form- 
ing of both one sole and identical Apostleship. 

By sufferings, let us repeat it for the last time, 
we understand all our pains, labors, sickness, infirm- 
ities ; our tribulations of all kinds, our trials of 
mind and body, reverses of fortune, voluntary mor- 
tifications ; and, above all, the daily offering of our 
life for the salvation of souls; and further, — if God 



314 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

inspires us with the desire to make the petition, — 
the request to suffer for this apostolic end, which has 
been made by so many generous disciples of Jesus 
Christ. They thus placed themselves in the condi- 
tion of victims prepared to endure all things, even 
death itself, for the greater glory of God, the more 
certain triumph of the Church, the extension of the 
kingdom of Jesus Christ and the salvation of souls. 

It is not then without reason that the Apostle- 
ship of Prayer puts every morning on the lips and, 
what is better, into the heart of its numberless 
Associates its beautiful Morning Offering which is 
at once a daily prayer and offering and consecration. 

O Jesus, through the Immaculate Heart of Mary, 
I offer Thee, in union with the Holy Sacrifice of the 
Mass, all the prayers, works, and sufferings of this 
day for all the intentions of Thy Divine Heart. 
Amen. 

FATHER LYONNARD'S PRAYER. 

O most merciful Jesus, Lover of souls, I pray 
Thee, by the agony of Thy most Sacred Heart, and by 
the sorrows of Thy Immaculate Mother, cleanse in 
Thy Blood the sinners of the whole world, who are 
now in their agony, and who are to die on this day. 

Heart of Jesus, once in agony, have mercy on the 
dying. 



GENERAL CONTENTS. 



FIRST PART. 

The Divine Mission of Suffering. 

Page 

Editor's Notice v-ix 

To the Reader . . . i 

Chapter I — Suffering the inevitable condition of man 

upon earth II 

Chapter II. — Suffering a very efficacious means by which 
man is enabled to attain the chief end of his 
being : that is to say, to save his soul 19 

Chapter III. — How a Christian is raised by Jesus Christ 
to a participation in the Divine Nature, or Deifi- 
cation of the Christian by Jesus Christ .... 30 

Chapter IV. — The Sufferings of the Christian raised to a 
Divine state by Jesus Christ, or Christian sorrow 
deified by Jesus Christ 37 

Chapter V. — The Divine Efficacy of the Sufferings of 

Jesus Christ, our Head . 45 

Chapter VI, — The Divine Efficacy of the Sufferings of 

the Christian as a Member of Jesus Christ ... 53 

Chapter VII. — God's Recompense for Christian Suf- 
fering 63 

Chapter VIII. — The Divine efficacy of Suffering endured 
for the Salvation of Souls. — The Divine Mission 
of Suffering in Jesus Christ , 70 

Chapter IX. — The Divine Mission of Suffering exempli- 
fied in Mary, the Mother of Jesus 77 

315 



316 THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 

PAGE 

Chapter X. — The Divine Mission of Suffering exempli- 
fied in the Apostles, Martyrs, and Apostolic men 
of all ages 83 

Chapter XI. — The preceding Doctrine confirmed by the 
explanation of the Text of St. Paul : "I Jill up 
those things that are wanting of the sufferings of 
Christ in the flesh'''' 93 

Chapter XII. — Essential Conditions of the Deification 
of our Sufferings ; that is to say : How the union 
of our Sufferings with Jesus Christ is to be 
wrought out, in order that they may become 
divine and efficacious for ourselves and others . 102 

Chapter XIII. — Practical Conclusions to be drawn from 

the preceding Chapter . . 112 

Chapter XIV. — The Union of our Sufferings with those 

of Jesus Christ is wrought by the Holy Ghost . 122 



SECOND PART. 

The Apostolic Uses of Suffering. 

PAGE 

Chapter I. — The Apostleship of Suffering in Families 

and among the common Faithful 137 

Chapter II. — The Apostleship of Suffering among the 
Sick and Infirm, and those who are on their 
Deathbed 152 

Chapter III. — The Apostleship of Suffering amongst 

Priests and their Congregations . 173 

Chapter IV. — The Apostleship of Suffering in Religious 

Congregations and Communities 185 



THE APOSTLESHIP OF SUFFERING. 317 

PAGE 

Chapter V. — The Apostleship of Suffering in Religious 

Communities of the purely Contemplative Orders. 195 

Chapter VI. — Practical Considerations drawn from the 

two preceding Chapters .....210 

Chapter VII. — Of Special Victims . . , 221 

Chapter VIII. — Examples 232 

Chapter IX. — Voluntary Victims of Our Own Day . . . 247 

Chapter X. — The Qualifications of the Apostleship of 

Suffering, particularly of the Special Victims . . 254 

Chapter XI. — Summary of Dispositions Required . . . 259 

Chapter XII. — On the Direction of our Intention in 

Suffering 269 

Chapter XIII. — Various Pains and Trials which are 

endured by Special Victims in particular .... 274 

Chapter XIV. — Of Interior Trials . 284 

Chapter XV. — Of the Agonies endured by the Holy Soul 

of Jesus 294 

Chapter XVI. — Of the Agonies endured by certain Souls 
whom Jesus Christ associates more particularly 
with His Life of Agony and Crucifixion . . . . 301 

Chapter XVII. — The intimate Communion which sub- 
sists between the Apostleship of Prayer and the 
Apostleship of Suffering 307 



